This is a difficult question to answer but I'll do my best In the beginning I think it was the Corsair due to my love for fighter jets and the relaxed gameplay of the lock-on mechanic. When the Shogun was added though, it was definitely my favorite and I think it remained this way for a long time. Lately I have played the Shogun so little that I'm probably rubbish at it Even after all these additions I think the Mirage, which always had a special place, is my all-time favorite. You can play it in a very relaxed way using your conventional weapons (which are mostly homing). If you want to put some effort into it you can try and time your Nightfury to be at max strength just at the right time in the right place to flawlessly 'skip' an encounter as it blows up before any bullet reaches you. I still find immense satisfaction in that :> Somewhere before the Phantom was released I also started playing with the Phoenix again. I must say this ship also has some strong gameplay merits. Because it has no additional *look at me pew pew* mechanics I am able to focus more on the core gameplay of avoiding bullets and timing pick-ups. This should not be underestimated I just asked Tijmen what he thought and he instantly answered "Phantom". With, surprisingly for me, the Mirage in second place.
In all honesty, i dont play Phoenix HD very often. But here's a fact: Despite all the new releases that i almost always get each week, I always find myself playing a few games of Phoenix HD each week. Only 4 games get played this often despite being released over a year ago: Phoenix HD, Infinity Blade 2, EPOCH, and TheEndApp. Other games i always get back to regularly but havent been out over a year yet are TR2, Slayin and Into the Dead. This said, i have considered these games as the best in at what they offer, and actually set the bar for quality on each of their respective genres. So yeah... Just wanted to give my sincerest "happy 2nd birthday Phoenix HD" and wishing it more success. Cheers!
Hhaha! It's still one of my most played games since i had it installed. One thing iOS gaming changed me into is more of a game collector, and less of a game player. Work and fatherdom did their part too.
I'm in the same boat myself. Given the nature of the appstore and ios gaming where games are constantly going free or dropping to a buck in price, I download too many games that literally never even get played. Theres a handful of games that have gotten the vast majority of my play time over the years (Fruit Ninja, Into The Dead, Zombie Gunship, Flight Control...) and a whole raft of games that have sort of been absorbed into the void and forgotten after being downloaded.
Yah...neither am I playing Phoenix HD a lot these days.... Can't quite remember the last time I played it neither. I am getting busy and prep-ing for major exams ahead, so less time left to play. Even if I do play my iTouch 4G, I'm still progressively trying to complete a rather recent game I've downloaded...anyone played BADLAND before? Shmups are definitely not my cup of tea (I think I kind of suck at them, though sometimes I get pretty good scores that nets me a gold medal - though I have no idea whether that is even very good anyway ), but Phoenix HD felt really different and unique to me. That's why when I search for new games, I automatically debunk all other shmups because I've already found THE ONE. Sometimes though, I would just take a brief scan of the descriptions and plow through the screenshots for entertainment sake.
I love Badlands! Been waiting for the lates update and levels for a short while though, can't wait to have more levels!
Jesus, I didn't even see this post and I'm basically 'The Phoenix HD Forum Thread Hawk' at this point. Must have just slipped on by. Interesting. Yeah, it really is a difficult question (like choosing between the blonde, brunette and redhead, and then a second blonde, brunette and redhead. Such dilemmas!), but a fun one to assess. Good point about the Phoenix and I feel the same way. With the additional mechanics that the other ships possess, the 'traditional' aspect of the Phoenix is in the minority and is unique for being so. Oh, and in terms of the Phoenix, don't you think for a second that I didn't notice right away when that fourth blue laser was removed (not sure of the name, since I can't find a diagram of the Phoenix's weapons systems on your website). No one else probably did, but I noticed. I liked that laser too The Mirage is so awesome and it could easily be my favorite as well. I'm glad you like the idea of the Stage 4 Nightfury. I think that could be really neat, having a short power blast to reward the player for keeping the beam going for that long. If the Phantom's rates were tweaked then I would be more into it than I currently am. I still wish the Overdrive bar filled slightly faster (both naturally and from particle assistance, or even just one of these) and I wish there was a brief buffer of time before the Overdrive bar begins to deplete after removing your finger. Oh, have you ever thought of adding a sound effect for the Overdrive beam? There might be one there now, but if so it is really quiet. Particle overflow mechanic/possible relation to score, Stage 4 Nightfury mechanic, shield IAP for extra shield drops/possible longer shield duration, Overdrive beam sound effect... Hmmm. Did I miss anything? Oh, and is it too early to start brainstorming ideas for ship #7?
It is never too early to think about possible ships The gun that was removed was called the Sonic Cannon. Several people noticed and asked for it on the forums and on Facebook. It wasn't really a laser beam though, just white triangles :> Fun fact, the Phoenix is one of the most demanding ships in terms of performance due to the high amount of projectiles it dishes out when upgraded to the max. Particle overflow and stage 4 Nightfury might arrive some point but not in the next update. I don't think we'll change how the shield works or move into the 'upgrade the pickups'-model a la Temple Run. Who knows, we might change our stance on this in the future, but it won't change this next update :> We are aiming to add an in-app purchase, but it won't be a ship :] (Badlands is an awesome game)
No, not the Sonic Cannon. That was removed from Phoenix SD to Phoenix HD. You removed one of the blue lasers. There are now three, whereas before there were two that shot forwards along with the two that shot out on an angle. Angle, forward, forward, angle is how it was. Now it is angle, forward, angle.
This pic actually has all 4 of them, if you look closely. There used to be the two skinny purple/blue lasers side by side, with one to the left and one to the right going at an angle. You took out one of the side by side lasers, so now there is only three. I liked it with the fourth because it made it look thicker.
Ah yes the 'chaingun'. It had soo many projectiles and particles we had to reduce it as well to keep the whole scene from going white with particles and projectiles. The chaingun now maxes out at 100 projectiles per second (used to be 130). Each 'salvo' also has a muzzle flash and each impact bursts into a couple of sparks (as you can see on your screenshot :> ). We have since tweaked and optimized the particles so in theory I could add the 'fourth' stream again without breaking the game
Yes! Please add it back! That would be great El! I think it would look better too with the origin of the chain gun up higher on the wing (closer to the cockpit) although I'm not going to press my luck here
Will see, maybe, we prefer not to touch anything related to gameplay balance if we don't have to. Position would be re-evaluated as well. The placement is generally determined by the other guns, so they don't overlap.
Been a long while since I last went on here and man did I miss a lot! Had a good time reading and catching up on everything. Things are busy and tiring on my end and I haven't been playing recently probably for over a month and my rank has been slowly moving up for Phantom... Currently 12th. Looks like I got to get back into it again real soon but it's going to be a real tough hurdle to get past, 1st place Trung Kone is in my region, Oceania, by a big gap. Not going to stop me though, never gonna stop fighting heheh. And got to say, Happy Birthday Phoenix HD! May a great game like you keep on continuing to grow! For the t-shirt idea, funnily I had the same sudden idea around the same time it was mentioned while at uni. Thought one with the main logo (http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/076/Purple2/v4/13/46/26/13462624-4eeb-74d5-3658-5a458960f198/mzl.xdnnxhzs.png) on a black t-shirt would be cool with the white stripes continuing on passing the back of the shirt or similarly ones with the different ship-types like what's the game's menu screen. And contributing to new ship idea again. Similar to what was mentioned earlier in a way I suppose, how about a ship that only requires one power up but that power up be an Alpha Strike which changes the ships weapon type based on what's picked up? Like picking up Tesla would give an electricity type shot, missiles missile-based, linear gold bullet-type as a default, etc. After the initial pick-up, Alpha Strikes can be stored up and the following ones can change your shot-type. This could be something that will get us to continually to different situations, using different strategies at different moments, etc. But, just only tossing ideas around. That's it from me for now.
Seriously, what's so great about this game ? No Missions, no epic bossfights and a lot of in-Apps. Am I missing something?
In all sincerity I would say you expect it to be a campaign driven game while it is more of a competitive game. You play to improve your score each time. There is somewhat of a learning curve involved and it plays best with Location Services enabled. I'll leave the more 'passionate' defence up to the other forum guys. As a dev I feel biased and you might prefer to hear it from others than the guy who made it
Do you like shmups? If the answer is yes, then yes, you are missing something. If no, then why would it matter? As far as there being no epic boss fights, theres practically a boss fight ever twenty seconds. The game is basically one long boss fight. And there really isn't a lot of iaps. You don't have to buy anything to enjoy the game...
