Great wallpapers! Although, why the slight misalignment? After playing for 10+ hours (which is the most I've spent on any iPod game), this is probably one of the greatest games out there. A couple notes, I'll probably think of more, but this is what I have so far. 1. I think I found a glitch - Sometimes, during multiplayer, when I'm just fighting a bot, the +/- of resources seems to freeze. My resources go up and down just as they should, but the number seems to have stopped changing. There's nothing in particular that I'm doing to get this I think, but I'll keep checking. 2. I'm not sure if this is a part of the game play you've intended, John, but it changes the game play drastically. I only recently discovered it though, and haven't had much experience with it. Because you can queue units, have them built except for a small sliver when your popcap is full, and then move them to another slot, I've been able to have a foundry with five battleships almost completed. I send them in with the main force, and as each ship gets destroyed, a new one is instantly created out of the foundry. Effectively doubling my defensive capabilities in some cases. I'm not sure if you intended this or it's just a strategy. I call it stockpiling. I was thinking a good way to solve it is, as the ship remains in secondary slots, it gets progressively unbuilt, so there's some draw back. Just a thought. 3. The game seems to suffer from a very one sided view. For example, the tutorial is lacking because you, having made the game and knowing it so intricately, have trouble understanding where somebody would run into problems. Same goes for the plot line as it seems, where what's revealed isn't made very clear. There are a couple solutions for this that I can think of. One, for the tutorial, offer ten promo codes or an iTunes gift card to somebody who can make the best youtube video showing how to play the game. You could link to the video here, or release a small update directing them to it from inside the game. Have the videos split up (i.e. Building units, moving groups) so you can link to each individual one without the person having to look through the whole video. The other is, more Beta testing with people who haven't had to spend hours with the game. Maybe handing it over to someone you know, asking them to try and figure it out, and take notes. Like a fly on the wall experiment, where you can't say anything, just listen to the issues that are arising. 4. I'm having trouble understanding the differences between Red and Blue. Blue just seems to be weaker. First, the building speed and cost differences, which changes the game play some, but not a whole lot. Second, the monitor, which is tough to effectively use when you're facing an army twice your size or so because each one takes up five slots. Third, the MV, which takes up EIGHT slots, which is a huuuuge amount. This doesn't so much encourage strategy, it's just a huge drag on your popcap and a terrible defensive vulnerability. Fourth, the third layer of tech tree (Base > Foundry > Carrier), which means that if you want to deploy the weakest semi-effective unit, the Cruiser, you have to build a carrier first. I can see it coming in handy that a carrier can build a cruiser, but it makes it harder for Blue to take off at the beginning of the game. The only one I can think of a solution to is the MV. Instead of having them take up popcap, make a maximum limit of three, so you can only have three deployed at any one time. This evens it out with red, because there healing doesn't take up any popcap. Also, make them heal faster then a red typically would (which I believe they already do). I'll spend a lot more time with blue though, and see what comes up. Maybe they do have strategic advantages, but so far the only one I can tell is the Monitor, and some pretty strong disadvantages. Edit: Vingodoloras has convinced me otherwise in the Strategy thread, hehe, I suppose I was just being narrow minded. I will continue my blue journey 5. More map things. As it stands, the only map terrain feature is the asteroid fields. It slows them down, and doesn't do any damage. While this is useful, I think there could be a lot more. For example, a storm that slows them down, not as much as the asteroid field, and does small amounts of damage. Maybe a black hole that will suck any unit in that doesn't gets too close. Or stars that have radiation shooting out of them and gravity effects. Lotsa stuff! 6. Besides those, a couple changes might be: - Online Multiplayer. I'm not sure if the amount of people asking for it has reached the amount necessary for you to put the effort into it, but with the game selling, it might be worth it to contract it out to someone whose had experience with it and can do it in a month or so. - Auto-correcting paths for ships. A few people have mentioned this earlier, but it'd probably help a lot. - A couple more formations. The turtle is fantastic, but it'd also be nice to have something like an arrow, or some directional ones. - Squads. So you can tap through Battleships or Destroyers or whatever and quickly issue orders. - Some way to recall units. I often have my popcap maxed out, and a couple harvesters I no longer need, or a cruiser hanging around. So maybe you get half the resources or something for bringing it back in. - I don't know how useful the movement of icons is when you tap a ship, have you tested static symbols? For someone beginning, it's a little overwhelming, and for someone who knows what they're doing, it's either annoying or a none issue. - Cool drop in graphics, hehe. So when the game first starts, a portal opens up and drops you out, with awesome sound effects. - Knowing how much each individual harvester is bringing in. I'm never sure how much difference moving them ten pixels over does, or the strategic value of each harvester. And how much is left in a resource deposit. - Map editor. I know there was some talk about this in the other thread, but if you had multiplayer and some new terrain features, it'd be sooooo cool, hehe. - Dedicated skirmish mode. I know you can do this by making a multiplayer game with a bot, but just having a skirmish mode would nice. - As sort of another perspective I guess then a suggestion, on the opening screen, what if you had random ships come in. So instead of the same loop, it was just units flying in blowing each other up in a new way. I dunno how hard this would be to implement, but it'd be cool. - Dual mode for multiplayer. Each person either gets assigned ships, or a certain amount of resource to use to buy ships before the game starts. If you lose a ship, you're just out one. Pure strategy with each unit a very careful decision. I guess that's about all I have Slightly outside of the game, I was thinking, what if you had a public and constantly updating change log. So if you're adding a feature, we can go and see a list, and if you're really feeling up to it, the completion percentage. I'm not sure if Apple lets you do this, but what if you automatically threw the songs into the music directory when you downloaded the game? Same with wallpaper into the image directory? Maybe have a generate button or something that would do it? To encourage community, you could release the art for the game, and give promo codes (or another prize, I don't know what you have to offer, hehe) to people who make neat wallpapers or something. Maybe video tutorials on how to make the cool backgrounds and everything? There may be copyright issues, but nobodies gonna make a game as good as this, and so long as they source you, you're not losing much and you're gaining attention. Also, could you post the stats on each ship? Namely, the damage. We don't know if a maxed out carrier is more effective then a BS or Destroyer, or by how much. And how much damage fighters do, which would help a lot. I thiiiiink that's it. I guess I had more then I originally figured. I hope the sales are going well, this game is unbelievable! I'm convincing everyone I know with an iGadget to buy it Now, to go study for finals... Hmmmmm... Edit: As a thought inspired by all of the people having trouble getting through the campaign, you could offer promo codes or cards to people who make walk-throughs on Youtube. It could be a requirement they have to get an S rating to, so you know it's solid. NOW time for finals.
You'll like it, I think. I'm not sure if it's just me, but losing in this game is some what funner and easier then in most other games. It only takes a couple minutes to lose, so you're not losing much I guess There's not a dedicated skirmish mode, but you can always go into Multiplayer, host a game, then just add in a bot and hit "ready." I'm pretty sure John's working on a Skirmish mode, so eventually a real one will come out, but for now, that should do the trick. The campaign is actually pretty fun. I know what you mean with the chillaxing in the skirmish mode, I haven't beat Yuri's Revenge yet, but when you get your strategy down, you start winning them at a pretty good pace. Plus there's only five levels (right now), so it's not so intimidating that you don't even want to start. Goo' luck!
I really like how dedicated the fanbase is that we are tempted to write, and write a lot about this game. John, comments?
Two giant posts on one page? Red Conquest is breaking records here. Thanks for the advice GumGuts, yours and RacingGun's posts have convinced me to buy the game. I hope you're both planning on participating in the strategy topic, 'cause I'm gonna need you
I talk about this in the middle of my gigantic post of doom, but basically all ships have a maximum number of escorts they can have (for some of the very small ships this max is 0... that is, they don't have escorts). The escorts, in case you don't know are the little ships (snaky thing for the Red and little group of fighters for Blue) that automatically orbit around your ships to defend them during combat. If you tap a ship on the main screen, the circular menu comes up. One of these options is to transfer escort ships between ships. (photos attached) By dragging from one ship to another, you can move escorts between ships. This is particularly useful for ships that can not build their own escorts, that is any of the non-builder ships, such as the battleship. The other side of escort management is building them. The first option so to order them built manually by going to the build screen on any individual ship. Alternatively, on the same screen OR the fleet build screen (tap the 2nd bottom from the right on the bottom), then order escorts to be built automatically up to a specified number by holding down on the escort button (again, second button from the right on the bottom). Hope this helps.
RacingGun: did you start writing that last week??? Thank you all for your feedback, I've written down a number of things into my todo list from this one page of this thread. Some of what I worked on today: -made difficulty curve a little less pronounced in the first couple of levels, especially the first real campaign level -I made red more red, as has been requested -I'm prototyping levels for episode 2. But I shouldn't just yet, because I should get some minor bug fixes and tweaks out the door first for you guys. like easy skirmish mode!
Actually I started about an hour ago, and it all just kept flowing out of my head onto the page Edit/addition: when I finally hit "post" and it notified me that it was way too long, I scrolled through my post and only then realized just how long it was.
Can we just take a minute to compare the quality of posts in this topic to those in games such as Pocket God, Minigore and Eliminate. That... is what convinced me this game is the real deal.
Ah, sorry i know what those are. The game has them as fighters, I didnt get it when you guys were saying escorts I know I really like them, I like putting some of them with my attack units early on so they have a lil more punch. Just a misunderstanding.
lol i was writing stuff down too and then i decided to call it a review lol, you can check it out here too. One more thing I'd like to add. You're rated on challenge and campaign levels. Some of these (at least to me) are pretty hard which provides an incentive to go back and try to get that S rank. First person who gets ALL S'rank. Post it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does it count if I post that? I guess it's a good reassurance that it's possible if the dev has done it. Then again, I can't get past about level 63 in Blue Defense, and there are people out there who've made it waaaay further than that...
Amen. Lol. How can you write that much? xD So, join the strategy discussion thread and lets talk about how to let the enemy cry most efficiently Hmm, but I need to go to bed now (it's 00:36 in Germany)... See you later (and dont post thousands of pages, I will read everything, it would kill me )
No, it does not count. But at least its possible Thats my goal right now. Finish up campaign in S rank then move to challenge. I really wish the multiplayer had a save function so i could throw some of that in too. This is asking too much but maybe different strategies for the computer....aggressive, turtler, solid, etc.. AND..... I have found a bug!!!!!! Select Units->Select all->filter out attack (not sure if its just attack)-> move command->drag to move somewhere->take screenshot with iPhone (home+power)-> picture is taken and menu is frozen, unresponsive. On rare occasions it ends up messing up the move command permanently so the end location is way above the screen where you cant see it, sometimes it even goes all the way up to the bottom back up..... I found this looking for bugs, just trying to find them for you
might be more beneficial to talk about it here so people keep seeing it and it gets more attention. Look at Eliminate thread. Besides some stuff in strategy could be discussion also
Good catch! It's easier to reproduce than that! Touch the screen, anywhere, on the map view, for instance - then do the screen-capture thing. then touch anywhere else, and it's like the finger is still there! Phantom finger! I bet that happens in my other games, too, but there's not so much multitouch in those, so it's less of a problem. I've added it to my list.
Ah! that sounds good. Still trying to reproduce that other one. Yea I LOVE the multitouch ability of this game. I love having one finger on zoom button and using 2-3 buttons navigating the menus and moving my units. It's sOooooooo much fun
I just finished "A Tale of two"... what a fantastic level! Those survival challenges really show how useful certain units are... I'm looking at you Maintenance Vessel!
Game Impressions Argh I read a spoiler (not the one that you had to highlight, the other one..) Anyways, spent more time with this game, spent close to an hour (56 minutes) on Acceptance (the third real mission with the red circle breaking the blue planet). I don't know if you guys normally spend that long on a mission (or just that one) but it was a pretty long and intense battle. So many waves of ships I sent forward, get destroyed, fall back, regroup and rebuild, get attacked, send another full wave (to ship limit). Pretty intense. Love every minute of it. I finally got the hang of the controls and I can move and build stuff with ease.
It's a touches cancelled event Found it while developing my game "Running With Scissors" in screenshot time. Solution is nice and super simple tho in many cases.. just pass the exact same event to your main touch controller as a "Touches Ended" event and it should work quite well (though of course it will fire off the event in that case). Chris
