Red Conquest from John Kooistra - Looks awesome!!

You did it Jak!! You made the RTS...you sly dog you....I'll be picking this up for sure on launch. Glad to see your still kicking it buddy.

 

i some questions.... How do you plan on assigning groups and recalling them. Command and Conquer had them and you could do 3. Quantum Collapse also had them and although a bit weird, it worked perfectly. Just wondering how you plan to go about that. Also, I'm curious about how you will implement a selection rectangle and a zoom feature. Also, what kind of options will you have such as sound control, auto-save, save slots, types of difficulty, any 3gs specific feautures?

looked at the rest of the screens and it looks amazing.

Best of luck

 

You can actually change the colours in the options menu. I have a friend who is colour blind, so I didn't want to mess him up by having annoying similar colours forced on him.

There are colour variants used for when you play 3+ players multiplayer - so one person would be red, one would be blue, and the third (or greater) player would be one of the variants (purple, teal, etc).

 

I don't think I'll be using paid DLC at all - if I do, it will be free DLC, but in any case, I don't like selling an incomplete experience. I want to give the full story arc to anyone who pays upfront for it!

If Red Conquest told a complete story arc to begin with, and the DLC was just an extra side story (or an extension of the story) that would be a different question.


If anything, I might sell the game for less to start off with, then as I add content, up the price a bit. That way, early adopters get free updates, and latecomers get more stuff to start off with. Win-win!

 

Keep your eyes open in the campaign levels, the clues will be there...

 

NEED this It looks awesome!

Is the game designed for quick matches (building small base [which sounds freakingly cool to me with only units being able to used as blockers etc] and attacking enemy as soon as posible) or long ones (big base, maybe multiple defensive 'walls' instead of just building a simple ring of units around the important units, constantly having to manage defense AND offense, giving the enemy no chance to rest) or could both be possible? Because in other RTS games i hate that there are players who can kill me in a matter of seconds (example warcraft 3, i get killed by a small army when i got my first building done lol)

It sounds purely epic, the thing about building the base by using units instead of unmovable walls etc

 

There is a multiselect screen that you can bring up, and from there you have a number of "filtering" options.

You can select ships within a radius of the centre of the screen (zoom in and out to change the size of the selection radius), you can select *all* ships on the map, and you can manually tap ships to toggle their selection. The first two modes can also be affected by the filter:

The filter allows you to select types of units, such as combat units, bases, harvesters, and builders (or the default, "all units").

After you make your selection, you have even MORE options than just moving your units to a location! You can select formations, much like you could in HomeWorld. The action options are:

-normal move
-surround this point (forms a circle around the camera focus)
-surround closest base (forms a circle around your base)
-surround planet (forms a circle around closest planet, friendly or enemy)
-form line (horizontal or vertical, useful for starting off blockades)
-Turtle!

Turtle is my favourite mode, it makes a tightly bound group with the most important or defenseless units in the centre. So Bases, foundries, and harvesters end up in the middle of a pileup of combat units on the outside!


As an example, you can quickly zoom out, multiselect all combat units, and surround an enemy planet, quickly and easily. There's no limit on the number of units you can multiselect.


However, I actually find that when I'm playing the game, the squad-multimove screen is all I ever use - I used to use the multiselect screen a lot when I was first developing the game, but as time went on, multimove (moving units individually on a multitouch interface) became more fun and manageable - I got all the fine control I needed, and the game is balanced to have a lower number of units to make it manageable.

You can zoom in and out and move around just like you can in the Maps app - touch and drag to move, pinch and stretch to zoom in and out. You can also touch and drag the zoom icon in the top right - dragging down and to the right zooms out (to 6% minimum), and dragging up and left zooms in (to 280% maximum). For reference, less than 50% zoom is when the tactical (icon) view shows up.

Additionally, you can just tap the zoom icon to quickly zoom in or out. If you're zoomed out to the tactical map, it will zoom in to 100%, and if you're zoomed in, it will zoom out to 10%, to see most of the map.

The campaign mode for now only has one level of AI difficulty, but the levels are balanced to have an increasing level of difficulty as you progress through them. I do plan to have different AI difficulties in the future.

The challenge modes are also organized by increasing difficulty, but beyond that there is no difficulty selection.

There are some asymmetric maps in multiplayer as well, if you want to play 2v1 or 1v1 with one player starting off with an advantage. Look for the "man-in-the-middle" multiplayer map, and choose your teams accordingly.

For the first release, no - there won't be any 3gs specific features. If you're playing 8 player multiplayer, it's better for someone with a 3gs (or even an ipod touch 2G or 3G) to host, since they have a little more horsepower.

I have a 3gs myself, so I'd love to do something - maybe some extra graphical flair for explosions!

 

Thanks for your vote of confidence! Hearing stuff like this is what keeps me going, so thank you very much.

Some levels in the campaign are designed for you to sit back and build up before attacking, and others you do need to attack soon or the enemy will be too strong. Most levels are balanced enough so either play style will work, actually!

In multiplayer, different level styles will necessitate different strategies. The "close range" maps will focus on attacking as soon as possible with a small number of units, while the "conquest" style maps will tend to be larger. You will almost always start off with just a base, which is the slowest ship in the game (but still quite capable of combat), so on the larger maps it will be quite difficult for players to make a major push early on.

Basically, the Base ship can fight well, build other units, and harvest resources - so if a player wants to make a major offensive early on, and move their base to be part of that attack run, they will be leaving their starting resource pool - and be stuck with whatever they started the level with.

In the "nomadic" multiplayer game mode, resources are everywhere - and they dry up quickly! So in that mode, you actually have to move around, and will be forced into combat with other players simply because of the limited resource situation.

Yeah, it's pretty neat to play. Against the AI, you'll find that there are choke points that you can herd it into, and you don't need to build up your defenses around your base or harvesters. A human player will know to try to get around, but it's tricky, especially if you're near an asteroid field!


Which brings me to another gameplay feature I haven't mentioned yet - asteroid fields slow your units down, and they can be very thick or not-so-thick... but they affect your ability to move, and in a game where even your "walls" move, asteroid fields become very important.

In very thick asteroid fields, combat damage is cut in half! (now keep in mind that if you have a healing unit (any red unit, or being near a Blue MV), the healing will go at full speed in the asteroid field. So if you need to defend very badly to give yourself more time to build a unit, retreating into an asteroid field is not a bad plan (especially as Red)!

 

Wow thank you for answering all of our questions. The only question you forgot to answer though was auto-save and save slots. I will buy this game no matter what, I love RTS just got into the genre. So far for the iPhone though a very important thing is the load time and the auto-save. You know b/c its an "on the go" gaming experience it is very convenient to have auto-save and different save-slots for trying out different strategies etc.


This game looks very awesome and it will be a first day buy for me



EDIT:maybe for 3gs specific features you can set the game on regular graphics but for 3gs phones you can have the option to increase the eye candy ? just a thought

edit2: didnt mention it, but your contorl scheme sounds godly. I'm already in love with the control scheme. *drools

 

My last two games had a very simple auto-save function where you leave the game, and come back exactly where you were in the UI (no matter where you were, options, in-game, etc). They had no save slots - for Blue Defense, that would have broken the arcade style - but for Blue Attack, it would have been nice to save progress between levels somehow.

I'm actually designing the save system right now for Red Conquest, so input is appreciated here.

In Red Conquest, you can load it up, select any level, and play it. There's no carry-over in your progression like in HomeWorld or Blue Attack, so beating a level, quitting, reloading the app, and playing the next level is exactly the same as selecting that level in the first place.

In Campaign mode, you must beat the first level before progressing to the second, and so forth - but once you beat the first level, it stays beaten - so you can come back to it later, like the original Starcraft.

Basically, each level is Red Conquest is relatively short - you could hit 30-40 minutes if you're taking your time, but if you've taken the best strategy for a given level, you ought to be able to beat most campaign levels in under 15 minutes.

As such, I think the best way to implement save is when you close the app, automatically save the game you were playing, and give you the option to resume or delete the next time you load up the app. That's just because there's nothing that 5-10 minutes of play time can't get you back if you restart a level.

what do you think?

Load time has always been very important for me as a developer, as well - the faster I can load a game, the faster I can debug it and test things out myself!

So loading speed in Red Conquest should be up to my usual high standard.

That was another big deal for me - the fact that other RTS games tried to exactly mimic PC control schemes just didn't work for me.

I think I had a lot of the UI control scheme in my head before I had squad types and gameplay settled.

I hope it lives up to your expectations!

 

OMG, I'd bet the red's are not the cruel ones but the Blues are They destroyed the others. And Red is red revenge. No clue.

I can't wait for to come out.

 

@Game Type (rush enemy to death or build big base):
Thats EXACTLY what i hoped to hear! A mix of rush and base maps is what i miss in many RTS games. The nomadic Mode also sounds purely epic... bah I can't wait any longer for this game xD

For Save System:
What about a certain number of save slots (maybe 3 or 5) where you can save a game and load it later... that would be nice for these big maps where you may need some more time to build your base etc.

How is Online Play managed? Is it like Eliminate, the game searches for more or less random opponents, or is it more like UniWar, with it's ability to open a game (with options, which race to take, which map, etc.) and wait for others to join, as well as a Lobby Browser to see the open games?

If you go for the UniWar-Style of online gaming, a Save System for online games would be veeeery impressive (and unique to the iDevice).
With Save System i mean the following:
Player A needs to go, clicks on some kind of button in some kind of menu or whatever, which causes the game to save the current state of the game and inform the other players about it. (with online slots seperated from offline slots would be best)
When opening a 'new' game lobby, the player who saved the game can decide to load the saved game. He might then be able to choose whether he wants to be what was player A when the game was saved, or even continue what another player has begun.
Other players could then be able to join the game as if it was a new game, and they shall be able to take the position of one of the players who havent been taken already.

I know it sounds weird and its very unlikely that you will do something like this, but it would be totally genius

Oh, and btw, What will the price of the game be when it's released? Will there be something like a 48-Hour 0.99/1.99 Introductory Sale?
Or what about doing it vice versa: Starting at a price tag higher than the one you wanted to start at and reducing after 48 hours, and leaving a note about that in the game description (e.g. "Price will be lowered to xy in 48 hours. If you don't want to pay the higher price, wait untill the price has lowered. If you would like to support me a bit, think about buying the game right away " )
Sounds weird again im having weird ideas all day long

If you need beta players, I would definitely like to be one (although I know if you start asking for beta players, you will be flooded with requests )

 

Btw I will hate Apple if they delay the approval process until after christman :/

 

I hate to point at another game but in terms of save slots, save mechanism, and loading time I think that Warfare Inc is a perfect example. TO me, its the game I keep coming back to for the reason that Quantum Collapse takes forever to load so does Robocalypse. I, as a gamer on the go, just want to get in there and play and warfare inc delivers. So I would definitely recommend looking at the game at least for those things. In terms of everything else I really look forward to your game.

I guess to elaborate a little better. Everytime I open up warfare inc. it automatically goes into the last place where i left off. so i continue playing right away. however, i can save at any time to any of the 10 slots ( i only use about 5, for different levels and stuff) at any time, and this makes it convenient when i need to play online, I'll just go into the game, save into a slot, quit and go play online. I think that in that regards, warfare inc nailed it. Since it's still under development may I also recommend the ability to control sound and vibration (if there's any) many of these RTS games don't have a good sound control ( QC lacks it, so does warfare inc, Robocalypse even when its off the lil movie still plays) It's something small but extremely annoying. ANd putting it on mute is not the best solution.

Let me know what else you would like some feedback on. I'm not an old school RTS person. I just started with the iphone. However, I spent the majority of my iPhone time on RTS games ( the ones I mentioned) so I think I can give some constructive feedback

Thanks for listening

 

I have it on my iPhone too, it's a good save system. I've never played multiplayer with it though, what happens if you close the game? Does it forfeit, or save the game on the other side so you can reload it when you come back?

I think I'll include a savestate feature like Warfare Inc. It's simple and effective.

Looking back now at Warfare Inc's load times, that is very impressive. I can't beat that, but loading Red Conquest won't take more than a second or two.

And yeah, what is up with Quantum Collapse? It's like he generates the level each time or something, rather than pre-computing it and loading from a file. Those load times are monstrous! I never went back to QC myself, it's not portable enough for me.

There will be individual in-game audio sliders for both music and sound.

there are also checkboxes for disabling notification sounds, and disabling menu beeps.

No prob, it's guys like you that help me make my games better! Why wouldn't every developer reach out to the community?

 

I haven't settled on a price yet, but I've been kicking around the idea of a $4 initial price. Nothing's set in stone, though, and I think about it pretty much every day these days.

I might charge an extra dollar as I update with more content, but I'm not sure if that means that my target price is $5 or $6 or if I should just keep it at $4.


I never know what a good price is anyway, for the app store. Sometimes people buy things that are more expensive, under the assumption that it must be good! Consumer psychology is weird.

 

You forfeit if you close. Which makes sense. Someone was trying to say something about saving multiplayer, but I'm not too sure that will work out too well. I mean the genre is called Real Time Strategy. For warfare inc. you play and you cant save, you simply get the map packs and start the game, there is in-voice chat that you can access through the menu and that shows up for everyone on the screen. If you quit the game, the game is over you forfeit. However, you can give up and continue watching as an observer and all the fog of war is gone. It's very neat I've learned some strategies this way, from seeing how other people play.

I agree with the savestate, it is very simple and effective. I was surprised at how well it works.

Yea I think Warfare Inc is one of those games that arent given the recognition it deserves, the loading is incredibly fast. I mean, i open the app and bam! you can start plyaing right away. Obviously I dont expect this with every app, but I was just pointing out that fast load times help people to keep playing an already fun game.

Thats really awesome, you can't imaine the frustation I go through everytime with these games at the lack of these simple options.

I think that the biggest difficulty for your multiplayer will be the amount of people playing. If you look at Eliminate, the multiplayer is great b/c it has a lot of users. For Warfare Inc. I've found up to 40 people online, right now i just opened the app and found 13 people online. But this is a game that had a fan base from the pda.

I think the tough part will be having enough people online to make it an enjoyable experience for everyone. I think that for now you should just focus on skirmish which seems to be a huge deal to most RTS fans. I've researched a bit, and the biggest complain is skirmish. If you read the CC thread, you'll see that a lot of people think skirmish is too easy (havent played this game yet) Also its notable to note the lack of skirmish on Warfare inc ( but this game makes up for it with an almost infinite amount of missions) If you look at QC he had skirmish, (havent gotten through campaign to try skirmish) but some things kept people from going back to the game: slow gatherers, small issues with the pathfinding, some graphic glitches. In the end even though QC is a great game (sitll a big fan of it) many just saw all these faults and passed it over.

I think another issue, especially with warfare inc. is the bad a.i. Where your units are being shot at while moving and they dont attack back. QC does a good job at doing this. A big issue for me is the speed of the gatherers. Lookng back the changing of the game speed for warfare inc. has been very attractive. Sometime I'll make it slow to multitask and sometimes I'll set it high to build fast.

I think I'm starting to go into what each game lacked for me. Hmm, I'll leave what i wrote b/c i think it might be constructive but I dont want to make these games look bad b/c when it comes down to it, i really enjoy them. For example. When I want a deep experience I go with quantum collapse, I love the controls, they work for me. And warfare inc. is perfect for me since its a perfec on-the-go gaming. Havent devoted too much time on robocalpse b/c even with the mute button on, the movie in the beginning still plays a sound and if i turn down the sound, then i cant hear my alarm. And also b/c it lacks auto-save. or a mid-game save feature at all. lol .

Anyways, I'm more than happy to provide any type of feedback you'll be interested in. In terms of controls, presentation, gameplay, etc, I think I can help. I'm not a hardcore RTS fan but the iPhone has introduced me to this genre which I really enjoy playin. . I plan to buy this first day it comes out.

great to hear feedback. I hope this thread doesnt die

 

Yea price is tough. I think it depends if you want a big fanbase on multiplayer. Free+DLC is a very big gamble still. I think that if you have a very solid game with no bugs most people (at least RTS fans) would gladly put down $5 easily. However, I dont know how a price increase might affect you. I think people alwasy have the menatility that if the price was low before, it will go low again if given enough time.

 

This is so awesome. I just listened to the podcast, I'm so pumped for this game. I can't freggin wait, haha

John, I have an idea, not to be a cheap skate or anything - but you could set your other two games, Blue Defense and Attack, at .99 cents to celebrate the release of the game. People will buy all three if you say they're precursors