If you guys want to discuss the payment model of this game, head to this thread- http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=231913 Your post will just get moved there otherwise, save the mods some work. Let's keep this thread to discussing actually playing the game.
Part of the game seems to be the payment model, though. I am only (half) joking, but by golly I do like reading these threads before the stuff is moved. Probably says more about me though. It all gets very anodyne once all the good stuff is shifted.
Dare I say that Air Attack HD offers a similar alternative for 69 pence or for 8-bit people Super Ox Wars does good too in a Star Force vein for an all in price of 69p. Both little perfectly formed beauties if the Cave ones are out of reach.
If one is partial for a western shmup, like me, this game is preferable to any cave game. There's far more bullethell shmups on the AppStore than western shmups. Air Attack HD is a good game, but this is much better, IMO. Super Ox Wars is also very good, but as any Minter games, it's such a different and radical design and gameplay that it's hard to compare with anything else not made by Minter.
I have to say this requirement is very unintuitive. First of all, people who don't read this forum would never guess this, and will assume there are no IAPs. So you're probably losing sales due to people not discovering the IAPs. Assuming you want to keep the 1000 stars requirement, I'd suggest putting the shop button there right from the start, but making it pop up message when pressed before spending 1000 stars explaining the requirement. Second, the requirement seems a bit odd anyway. Is it because you're worried people might spend money on the game before deciding whether they like it, and then be mad? For me at least, based on reading the forums and then playing it a little, I already knew I wanted it and immediately went looking for the ad-remover IAP. In any case, I'd think it's much more common for people to try to avoid buying IAPs than to be in a hurry to buy them, so it doesn't really make sense to me to put up barriers to people buying them. That said, I'm loving the game. I quickly went and bought the ad remover, star doubler and ship generator. I don't really care about the upgrade timers since I just spend the extra stars to bypass the timers, and think of that as part of the upgrade cost. The timer bypass fees always seem to be only a small fraction of the upgrade cost. Think of it as sales tax.
I don't agree with your characterization of the controls as unresponsive. It's just that the ship is modeled as actually having some mass and inertia. Tons of flying and driving games simulate inertia and don't allow your vehicle to change direction arbitrarily quickly, and people don't claim those games are unresponsive. I think the developer's explanation makes complete sense. This isn't a bullet hell game like the Cave games, so it makes sense for the ship to have some inertia. I've been playing a lot of Bug Princess 2 and Phoenix HD lately, so the behavior of this game felt funny to me at first too, but I caught on right away to the fact that this is a different type of game. After a little while the handling felt natural and well suited to the game.
Wow, this game is huge! Maybe not everyone knows this, but if you complete all the secondary goals on each level, hard mode will be unlocked on each level. Do the same on hard mode, and insane mode will be unlocked! And insane mode is quite a challenge. This is a great game, the absolute best in its genre IMO. Many, many hours of challenging gameplay. Another thing I only realized after hours of playing - when you start a level, if you have stars banked, you can purchase bombs, laser and energishield from the screen at the very start of the level, before you tap the ship to descent into battle. For the harder levels, this is a must, don't rely on drops in the game.
Yeah... I've only completed all 12 medals on stage 1. As for the game, its Gameplay has the potential to be one of the best games on the appstore, but its got 1 flaw i cant get my head around that just pulls it down for me... The Stage 7 wall.
Yeah, i just reached level 6, so I'll hit that wall today, I reckon. I sure hope that they'll reconsider their strategy regarding that.
Unless..... There is no level seven yet and it's a delay tactic....... *looks right, looks left.... *runs away and hides
Fair enough, don't make it pixel perfect like Cave shooters. I still think it could be a little faster without losing this sense of inertia (which I would trade in a heartbeat for responsiveness, but to each their own). Anyway, I got used to the controls anyway. Enjoying it now. I like that there's a small RPG element here to keep you engaged by upgrading your ship. Nice stuff. I also don't get the complaints about IAP. I think it's very fair, actually! I haven't spent a dime and the progression is nicely balanced (I'll buy the star doubler though), and the ads aren't even that intrusive. Remember people, this game is free. They got to make money somehow and what they are offering for free is more than enough. Timers aren't that bad since you can easily skip them for a small amount of stars. Just think of them as part of the upgrade cost.
I haven't played this enough to know for sure whether in the long run I'll prefer this or the Cave type games. I will say though that I think they're intentionally very different. The fact that they're both scrolling vertical shooters certainly invites comparison and might generate certain expectations, but they're really very different games with different gameplay goals. I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that at any given point a Cave shmup might have 50 to 100 times as many bullets on the screen as this game. That alone tells you that these really aren't similar games. The major skill in a bullet hell shmup is to quickly identify patterns and thread your ship through really complex and tight paths through the bullets. For that type of gameplay it makes sense for the ship to move as fast as you can move your finger around, since the challenge comes from the density and complexity of the bullet patterns. In this game, the bullet and enemy density is much lower, and the challenge instead comes from needing to memorize the enemy patterns and learning to be in the right place at the right times, taking into account your ship's handling speed. It's a little more realistic, not very, but it does have more of a feel of having some actual physics involved. If this game had instantaneous movement like a bullet hell game, it would become much too easy, and to compensate they'd have to fill the screen much more densely, thereby turning it into a different kind of game than it is. Other major differences: The Cave games are pure skill-based high scoring games, whereas this is sort of a hybrid RPG and shooter, where how well you do is based as much on how you've upgraded your ship as it is on skill. In a Cave game any time I play I'm starting with the same ship, and how well I do is entirely based on my skill, and a lot of the fun comes from seeing my high scores increase as my skill increases. In this game a lot of the fun comes from becoming more powerful and effective as you upgrade your ship. One downside of this compared to the Cave games is it makes high scores kind of meaningless. Since I'm always upgrading my ship, and the upgrades are permanent, replaying a previous level and beating my previous high score is pretty meaningless, since of course I'm going to do better if my ship is more upgraded. I feel like I'd play a Cave game more for the rush and a pure challenge, whereas I'd play this more for the experience.
Sky Force gets quite challenging on harder levels too. So much that they can make early Dodonpachi levels blush. Yes there are more bullets on Cave shooters, but they are slower, more predictable and much easier to see. Not to mention your ship is smaller (the bullet only needs to touch a small point in the ship). But yeah, it's a different kind of experience, I get that. But like I said, I still think it could be a little bit more responsive and the balance wouldn't significantly change. Would be nice to have more ships too.
What control option is everyone using? The default one or the second one? I find myself constantly trying to adjust my finger or thumb to gain control over my ship. I'm using the second control option.
I'm using the second option and haven't noticed a problem. But I think I mostly play as if I'm using the first option, with my finger on the ship, so maybe that's why I haven't had problems. Other people have mentioned in this thread that when using the second option and placing their finger away from the ship, that the game intermittently moves the ship under their finger instead of keeping the same relative distance. At least that's how I interpreted what they said. Could that be what you're experiencing?
I didn't mean to suggest that this game is easy. It's more that, because I'm always upgrading my ship, when I do better it's harder for me to tell how much of that is because my skill is increasing and how much is because of the ship upgrades. This makes me less motivated to compete against myself the way I would in a Cave game or similar pure-skill based game. That's more what I meant when I said I'd play a Cave game for a pure challenge and play this more for the experience. This is also why I think I might not stay interested in this game for as long as the Cave games or similar skill games. No arguments there. I'm fine with the current responsiveness but I could imagine it being tweaked a little too and being fine. I'd also like game save slots, so I could start over with an un-upgraded ship without losing my current progress.
I'm using the second option, and I haven't had any issues. I keep my finger a good two centimeters away from the ship, and it stays at that distance. It's hard on my finger, though. Rough skin is starting to form on my index and middle finger. I'm shifting between them constantly because of the friction..
I try to keep my finger or thumb about 2-3 centimeters away from the ship....I find myself at times readjusting my finger or thumb because the ship gets too close to my finger. I'm playing this game on an iPhone 5s and an iPad 2. So far I'm doing better on the iPhone.
