It would mean extra textures, with stuff that is mixed in on other textures. Some of it I could do dynamically (like swapping the archer's character sheet for the mage's), but other things are optimized to keep texture swaps down. So the staves and rings are baked onto the same texture as the menu system, and if I added bows/swords to that, I'd either have to break it up into seperate textures (and waste space) or enlarge the texture and stick bows/swords on it... wasting space. Since I appear to be right on the edge of what the iPod can handle right now, adding in larger or more textures to be swapped around would probably make the performance complaints multiply like fire imps.
Great game I've been playing for a few hours and have to say I'm hooked. The characters are fun and I love the Potterish storyline. I even love the old school game references thrown in. 'Stay awhile... Stay forever!!! Was from Impossible Mission for the C64 wasn't it? Anyway, take advantage of the great price while you can! So much gaming goodness.
I had a blast with Hoggy = perfect classic console like experience. So, I'm definitely getting this one NOW.
Just experienced my first bug. I just return from town (bought a level) and I was walking on the first floor into another room and the game froze. I guess it auto-saved or something, because when I ran the game again, I was in the exact same spot. So far I'm loving it. I like how Solomon taunts you, little things like this are always a plus.
Just out of curosity, does the 3GS have the memory to handle these updates. I know it makes business sense to make the game run on as many devices are possible, but I'm just curious. I hear the 3GS has a ton of power that is relatively untapped due to games being scaled down for the 1G and 2G iPhones, and was wondering if this was one of those situations.
Ok, this I can understand. From your original statement I thought you were just referring to the game's memory size and you were trying to keep it under a certain size limit.
Yes, the 3GS is really a pretty powerful machine. I think it would be possible to do HUGE games on the 3GS if you didn't want to target the older stuff. But I'm not sure what the market penetration of the 3GS is anyway. Also, Apple doesn't have any checkboxes or anything to say "this only works on 3GS" when you're submitting, so if your stuff doesn't work on the older stuff, you're bound to get a lot of nasty "game doesn't work" reviews.
Just ran into a MAJOR framerate issue. I had my ipod plugged and charging, so I turned off auto-lock. I paused the game for around a total of 10-15 mins. When I unpaused to play, the game was running like 20x faster than normal. I ran across an entire floor in a few seconds and a mob surrounded and killed me in about 2 seconds. Upon death and restarting, the game was back to normal speed.
This happens to me too, but I like it. It's like an Easter egg that you can use to your advantage or disadvantage.
So if I have an iPod Touch 3G should I stay away from this game? It looks amazing but I don't want to run into any bugs or framerate issues.
Totally enjoying this one so far. I highly recommend grabbing this especially while it's on sale! It's becoming one of my favorites!
This is going to sound a bit nutty coming from someone who has a first-gen touch, but I do wish developers would start pumping out really cool 3GS-level apps that my device just won't be able to play. To hell with the old machines, basically. The idea being that I need a good reason to upgrade. I'd planned to get a 3rd gen touch late last year, but there wasn't any point. It doesn't do anything that mine doesn't, except maybe run a little quicker. And when push comes to shove, these things are expensive, and that just wasn't a good enough reason. Really? I'd have thought they'd have that by now. I know developers can cut out the first gen machine, that's what they did with Duke Nukem. Edit: You've got nothing to worry about mate. This thing plays great on my really much older machine. I had a freeze inside of the first 5 minutes, but restarted, and I was right at the spot where I'd frozen. It's been smooth sailing ever since.
My touch is a 3rd gen, and I say this is a must have. There might be a few bugs/issues, but they are not frequent enough to be a problem. If it freezes, restart the app and no progress is lost. If your game speeds up, just restart to fix. If framerate causes you to die, it's not much of a problem, you start back at the beginning of the floor.
That is the one thing that is frustrating about having a 3GS with all the iPad madness. I think the 3GS could really do a lo a lot of the things graphically that the iPad can do (minus the large screen), but I'm not sure if that will ever be realized, at least for a while.
I found another bug. Sometimes when you die and restart a floor, there is already gold outside of chests. It only happens to a few chests, and they usually aren't completely surrounded by gold like when a chest is open.
