Johnny V, two things... Does Plasma Sky support Retina iPad resolution and have you ever considered adding a second Survival Mode with different patterns?
Bump! Has anyone noticed that certain game threads get automatically removed from your Subscribed Threads List? I had Plasma Sky on there since release and poof, nowhere to be found. I've noticed it happen before too, with a couple other games. WTF? Anywho, any word from John 'Johnny V' Dunbar? If you're out there John, come back to the thread and chat with us. We have such delicious questions to ask you.
I only watch games rather than subscribe to threads. I wonder if a sequel could be in the works? I know it's cool to buy once and constantly get new content for free, but I'm all for a full fledged sequel with new modes and stuff.
Oh, before I forget... I am getting a strange stutter/pause while playing this on my iPad. It seems to happen randomly, where the entire game will literally stop for about a half second. iPad 4, iOSGarbage I mean iOS7.0.4. Connector, try it on your iPad 4 and tell me if you notice anything.
I did it! I got iCade working again! To paraphrase my girlfriend, once again I have coded something beyond my abilities. If anyone's interested, iOS7 was closing the game because I was attaching the keyboard input subview from a thread that I thought was the main thread, but was apparently totally not the main thread. iOS6 didn't care, but 7 does for some reason. This was discovered through a debugging montage that looked just like the movie Hackers, except I had a virtualbox of OSX instead of rollerblades, and I couldn't get my monitors bright enough to actually project the code across my face. Now I can submit that fix and move my working environment from this PC back to my laptop and actually get some new content finished. Hurray! I think I technically support iPhone retina but not iPad retina. The visual style seems to work well at the higher resolution though. How often does that happen? Maybe it's another app working in the background?
Hey John, welcome back. I shut down all other apps running in the background and the stutter seems to be gone. How hard would it be to get the game to support iPad Retina?
Yay! Whew! Well, as I understand it, supporting Retina means using large enough images so that each image pixel isn't represented by more than one screen pixel. I could do that by drawing all of the images again at twice the size and packing those into the game's assets, and then making a system that loaded the big versions for big screens and the small versions for small screens. I don't think it would really look much different though, so it's probably not worth the time and increased file size. I can look at it on my iPad though and pick out some of the images that look a little blurry, and upgrade those. I'll check that out now.
Ok, I fixed up the icons that bugged me in iPad retina, and I've sent the build off to Apple. Hope this doesn't break anything new!
Jesus that's fast. So, what exactly did you change? Also, did you see my question about a second Survival Mode with different patterns? I'm also wondering if we should still be talking about Plasma Sky at this point, or if maybe we should be shifting our focus to a possible Plasma Sky 2? If no sequel is in the pipeline, will you be doing anything else to Plasma Sky in the future in terms of new modes, etc.?
For the retina I just changed a couple of things like that icon at the top of the screen that looks like the player's ship, it was too blurry. If you see specific things that need improvement for your iPad, let me know and I can try to work them into the next update. I've made a bunch of new content, but it's not put together in a fun way yet. It's basically a new style of level with moving objects that you dodge, and my plan is to make a longer conquest mode with those levels mixed in, plus some new bosses and extra enemies for the existing levels. I have three new bosses made and a couple of new enemy types aside from the ones in the new level style. Maybe I should make a new survival style game mode with the new stuff too, could be fun. After this content patch I want to start working on some other kind of game, I'm not sure what. I need to do something different before thinking about a sequel. Thanks for the support!
Awesome!!! Yes, a new Survival Mode with different enemy patterns would be amazing! It is great to hear that you have these extra goodies in the pipeline before moving onto a new game. That's what I was hoping. I was starting to get worried since you've been away from the thread for quite some time. I will play Plasma Sky tonight and see if anything else looks like it could use a boost graphically and will report back here. Connector, you should do the same.
In terms of the Retina, I think the whole game would benefit from upgraded assets, so whatever you are willing to do will be appreciated. At the same time, the game doesn't look 'bad' on my iPad 4, but does look a step back in comparison to other games.
