Who's shouting? Most of us aren't cursing out the devs, merely explaining why we feel a game like this, in this genre, feels hampered by timers and other present elements. I appreciate that the game is free, but I don't want this game to be free. I want to be able to pay the developers $10, $15 and enjoy it without restrictions. That's at least what I'd prefer. Keep the game free, keep the IAP, but at least provide the option to enjoy the game sans timers. I say that, because the game itself is great. It's fantastic and polished and fun. But the core experience feels at odds with the game's structure IMO I'm not sure if you play many twitch games or bullet hell games, but there's something so satisfying and appealing about finding your groove, progressing from a quick sudden death to tearing the enemy a new one, through practice and skill and upgrades. The aspects here like the plane timer and the upgrade timer only delay that gratification. Sure, you can play, but it defeats the whole purpose and flow of dying, upgrading, and jumping right back with your more powerful plane and trying again. It betrays the addictive arcadey nature and one-more-go appeal
I don't have a problem with those IAP either. If the game is worthy I don't mind to buy ads removal instantly, it's usualy the first thing I do. Star doubler is a nice one and Plane generator is a good thing if you're not very patient or want to play a bit longer. All in all, considering the price for all of these at 5€ is nothing for what you'll get in return. Waiting times are reduced 30 times which is almost like they're not there anymore, there are no ads, it just feels like a premium game at such a low cost. And for the players enjoying the free game and not willing to pay a cent for it, I didn't even mention there's just one in-game currency for everything. In these times of freemium games filled with 3 and even more in-game currencies, this is just a breath of a fresh air for all of us. For those complaining about the greedy IAP, just think again what you'll get for those 5€, hours and hours of fun, stunning visuals and sound and remarkable gameplay. And for those complaining about the wall for stage 7, so what? Bronxta gave a really bad example with the ferrari, because you don't have to buy it.. if you get the ferrari for free but you have to wait for another 100 customers to own it before you can drive, so be it. It's free! Spread the word, enjoy the driving around the block before you take it to highway. And if you buy all possible IAP like me, there are more difficulties to beat for each stage, there are achievements to get and leaderboards to compete in. Just enjoy the game! I love it as it is, playing for hours since a have it, I highly recommend it just to everyone. Thank you Infinite Dreams for such a beauty, it's a must-have title and a keeper. Very well done.
I think the timer meta-game is a waste of time for the dev, and for players. For example you unlock a weapon for 1000 stars, then a timer is added with a 200 star unlock - why wasn't this price just put for 1200 stars? I mean I know why, to feed on the impatience of people and hope they shell out for the 5000 star IAP, but is that an appropriate angle to take towards players? If the total price was stated as 1200 stars without timers, it would force players to enjoy replaying and farming stars for the mere pleasure of the game. THEN IAP choices would start to take shape like an ad remover, and star doubler. But these days, especially on toucharcade the majority of players here are not going to care for timers, or Facebook social locks.
When did I mention a Ferrari? Personally I'm partial to Bugatti Anyway, enough with the IAP talk. I think I've explained myself pretty well. I'm sure people are coming here hoping for impressions too. What really made me fall in with the game are the visuals. They're so detailed and vibrant, I love the details in how you see your plane's shadow on the clouds or destroyed planes crashing into the water. A lot of shmups go for the minimalist look or have so many bullets on screen at once that you can't really appreciate the art, but here, the gameplay is at a smooth enough pace to let you really take in the aesthetic and visuals Other games are more frenetic or flashy but Sky Force is easily the most visually impressive shmup I've played on IOS
Although I've written negatively about the timers myself, it's not nearly as bad as some posts here indicate. The timers doesn't lock you out of the game at all, you just have to wait for weapons upgrades, or use more stars to skip the timers. That said, they're not needed in a game like this. The ship-refill timers does indeed lock you out of the game for a while, but that's easy to bypass, there's an IAP to get rid of those permanently, which u feel is completely fair. There's also an IAP to get rid of ads, also fair, IMO. The upgrade timers are annoying in principle, but they're not nearly as bad as some posts suggest. Their presence does confound me though, because when I've paid 4 bucks for the IAP's, I would expect to get what amount to a premium experience. The requirement for X number of people reaching the end of stage 6 is blatantly ridiculous, though, that's a clear error of judgement in their business plan. The game itself is absolutely fantastic, right up my alley. I've bought nearly every bullethell shmup on the AppStore, but I always get a little bit underwhelmed, because I'm more into Western shmups. This one fits the bill nicely! Business decisions from the Developers aside, it's the most beautiful, we'll craftet native iOS shmup ive played in my iPad, bar none. There are other western shmups as good as this one, but none with graphics as amazing as this one, and I can't think of any better in gameplay either. I wish them all the luck on their game, but I think they have to rethink the aforementioned issues before they'll reach success.
It was me talking about the Ferrari, but it seems you didn't read carefully enough: if you did it, you would realize that I actually PAID 5,37 Euros to buy the 3 IAPs. So I paid for IAPs just to have in my hands an incomplete game. Do you get it now?
It's a really good game...except for the timers. Istriker 2 is a good one worth checking out. Ive been switching back and forth between those two.
Lol wow haven't seen that on TA in the past 4 years I've been on this forum, guess there's no point in leaving opinions anymore even when they are constructive. I said the timer-meta game is a bit of a waste of energy for the devs and for players, its such an arbitrary mechanic designed to prey on the impatience of younger players so that they buy into the 5000 star IAP. For example let's say you purchase an upgrade for 1000 stars, yet are locked behind a timer which asks for another 200 stars - why not make the base price just 1200 stars from the get go and let players farm and grind for stars while enjoying the game? THEN you can start to apply IAP options such as the star doubler, no ads, plane generator, ect. For the most part timers and Facebook social walls are not too popular on toucharcade, hence why my post was deleted!
Why? If they are a discussion of people's impressions of the implementation of IAP in this game, don't they belong in this thread?
I expect this'll get deleted, but I'd like to ask it: I meant for that IAP thread to be about discussion on IAP in general. That's why I started it in General Discussion So just to clarify, in this release thread, we can discuss anything about Sky Force but the IAP?
Yeah, I understand them doing this when people start going off on rants about freemium in general, but a healthy discussion of the payment model as it is implemented in a particular game is an appropriate and necessary component of the core game thread people go to to get an impression of the game from players.
Unfortunately "healthy discussion" is hard to come by as people get so insanely heated about IAP of any kind that it's killing our forums. This kind of thing is part of a much larger revamp of our forum rules in the future where we'll split discussion of people who have actually played the game and want to discuss playing the game from people discussing how you pay for the game. The second part, for a lot of people, is totally irrelevant. The vast majority of folks out there have no problem with free to play or IAP, which is why these games have exploded in popularity.
@Eli: Well, anyway we were just discussing how the timers and the stage 7 block affected the gameplay: didn't seem to me we were just complaining about a model of payment... However you're right about freemiums: the vast majority of gamers don't care and are happy with them... maybe I'm just too old-school...
