Red Conquest from John Kooistra - Looks awesome!!

I've added that to my L.O.L.A.R.A.T.A.L.R.L. (pronounced phonetically)

List Of Long And Redundant Acronyms That Are Longly Redundant List.

Hehehe.

 

Thanks, John, for explaining all the screens! It looks so awesome... space combat on the iPhone... There's just something so man-on-the-moonish about it, especially for an RTS this well developed.

You said you can zoom out really far, do you have any screen shots of that you can post? Hehe

And how big are the maps? They sound huge, if a carrier can build a couple cruisers as they go to the combat zone...

 

+1. Although a video would probably make me even more impatient.

 

Submit already next week or the week after that? YEAH

This is going to kick Meteor Blitz off the gray Bar at the bottom of the homescreen (lol what's that bar called? Does it have a name? ), so it will stay RIGHT next to Pocket God on my iPhone... probably for a veeery veery long time

 

Dock

 

Hellooo.
Hey John ( can i call you that?)
I can't wait for your game to come out! I'm getting impatient and can't stop thinking about it! You should tell us when you submit the game to apple =]

 

There's no randomization of the levels, like in Blue Defense, but the adaptive AI is randomized. Some decisions, such as where to scout, how big an attack group to form, and where to mine resources are based on probability models - where is the most likely place to find the enemy, where should I be able to mine for the longest without being attacked, etc.

So when you play campaign levels with adaptive AI (levels 1, 2 and 5 have pretty scripted AI patterns), the game should play similarly, but with slight differences - sometimes the AI will focus on building carriers, or destroyers - sometimes it will attack right away, and sometimes it will wait a little longer.

The conquest challenge mode (4 levels outside of the campaign) should have the most randomness, since the AI has a ton of resources to build with, and superior tactical positioning in the level.

I don't think that's what you were talking about, but if you want the game to play differently sometimes, there you go.

 

This shot was taken at 25% zoom, so you can zoom out 4x farther than that. This particular level would take up about 1/3 of the screen at that scale, but the giant levels would take up the whole screen.

The maximum map size is 8192x8192. To compare that to the size of the iphone screen, at 100% zoom it's a 1:1 pixel ratio, which means that at 100% zoom, it's 25 screen widths across.

I don't have any maps that big, I think level 5 is 8000-wide but not that tall, and level 6 is the next biggest level at 2000x4000.

Also, for a sense of scale, the super-slow base ships only travel 20 pixels/second (at 100% zoom), but the speedy scout ships travel 60 pixels/second.

Most levels are under 2500 pixels across.

 

I'll start on the video as soon as I submit to Apple.

I'd rather put on the finishing touches than pump up the hype.

Sorry that you have to wait a little longer for the video - but it'll be worth it, I promise!

 

What the hell? You care about the quality of your game more than the hype surrounding it? And you call yourself an iPhone dev. Just for that, I shall be forced to purchase every app you release.

 

Ok, as long as I get to see stuff blow up.

 

Just out of curiosity, what are you working on right now John? Bug fixes? Gameplay tweaks? Creating campaign levels?

 

The last bug I know of (a graphical glitch in two of the cutscenes) was fixed yesterday just after lunch.

All the campaign levels were finished a couple of weeks ago, and I've been tweaking them ever since.


The very last thing on my features list is the advanced tutorial, which I hope to have finished later today - it's already pretty much done.


After that comes final validation testing (playing the crap out of it with some friends), and hopefully no more bugs come up!

 

This game looks great! I like the art style a lot, makes the game seem much more exciting

 

I thought there would be much more hype than this. STILL CANT WAIT FOR IT. (btw, I purchased Blue Attack! and I love it. I wish the campaign wouldn't start over after you beat it.)

 

I love your attitude! It's a refreshing change from a lot of indie devs! I am getting this and promoting this game with the community!

 

Thanks a lot, man!

I depend on people like you to stand up and take notice. My last two games, I didn't even spend a single dollar on advertising. It was all word-of-mouth, and youtube videos.

From there, Arnold Kim contacted me, and other review sites did (I even got a mention on Kotaku for Blue Defense last Christmas!), but I never did anything other than that.

I was thinking of changing that this time around, but I have no idea how to put together a solid ad campaign.

I guess that's where my attitude comes from: I'm doing okay as it is, so why blow my games out of proportion? I'd rather overdeliver than overpromise.

 

Since it's all playing now, mind if you make a video while you play the crap out of it? Keep in mind approval might take a long time and i really want to see this.