Universal The Drowning - (by Mobage, Inc.) [Universal]

Do you follow West Coast?

 

Ok, at least it is a better model than a lot of freemium games. another question. When is the worldwide release, and will it be universal? I guess that's 2 questions... and on the warehouse map, if ypu go I to the building, the creature can go through a wall if your close enough for it to attack trough it.

 

Worldwide is coming soon. I can't say for sure when because we are gathering feedback at the moment from places like this as well as looking at the telemetry from players.

We will be iPad for the worldwide launch and then bring in iPhone later. We want the game to run great on iPhone 4 so are spending time making sure that happens.

Thanks for the bug mention. I think we are already aware of that one and looking into it.

 

I think the new generation equates beta testing as free early demo access instead of bug hunting and trying to find all the ways and means of crashing the program so that it can be fixed before going gold...

 

I've gotten to the forth location set, and am loving this game! Those who wrote this off fairly early, give a try again! I am in no need of black stuff, the weapon times don't really bug me, and the searching for parts has been decently easy. There is always the one part that is really hard to get. Give this another try people!

 

Impressions after an hour of play...

I am having fun with this game. It actually has a story line complete with voiced cut scenes. I like how they did something creative with the controls, and I like them. But I kinda hate the NOVA or MC control scheme, really I just usually hate traditional FPS games on iOS in general. I do wonder why the debs didn't make it so one finger tap shoots while two finger tap moves. This would make shooting much easier, but perhaps that'd be too easy. If you hold your two fingers together its easier to be more accurate. My strategy has quickly become to let the creatures get right next to me then blast them, for much easier head shots.

After about 30 minutes I ran out of gas, the in game currency, and now have to wait or pay to play more. What's unclear is how long I have to wait for my gas to refill. Another thing that is unclear is what the other icons at the top of the screen in the pre game menu mean.

Edit: Seems to take about 10 minutes to get one can of gas. Currently it costs me 3 gas to play a 2 minute round. It would be nice to have a timer to see exactly when I get my next can of gas.

Bugs stuff...
Seems to be a bug where enemies occasionally get stuck in place. They track your movement but can't move.

Minor bug, I needed an ocular lens to build the rifle. I looted one, but the "you can now craft the rifle" message popped up when I looted something else.

More stuff
A sensitivity option would be nice for faster turning. The 180 button is crucial but overall increase in speed would be much appreciated.

The game seems really easy at my early on stage. The more kills you get the more loots you receive, but it is really hard to die. I played a round without moving, only shooting and yet I still survived. Which made me wonder if death was possible, and it is, I died after about 30 seconds with no movement or shots fired.

Still having fun with this. I think the IAP model is okay, not great, but okay. One game every 30 minutes seems like a long wait. But considering I'll probably have a full tank the first time I pick this game up every day, and considering how many other iOS games I could be playing, its not that bad. This model works great for playing a few games every once and a while. I'll still have to see how this plays out.

 

Seems there's a lot of negative reaction about the control? It's one of the feature that differentiate it from other FPS, and even though I haven't tried it, at least I'm glad too that someone have a courage to do something different.

Anyway, this is one of the games that I'm excited to play this year. Can't wait for worldwide release to get my hands of it.

 

Glad to know i'm not alone! As I said earlier, whether it works or not I'm really glad someone is at least trying to innovate when it comes to touchscreen fps controls. I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

 

Thanks for the feedback Neehan!

Some responses -

Regarding gas consumption - we are tuning the game during the soft launch, so these elements are being balanced right now.

Single finger shooting - one of the first things we tried around 1 1/2 years ago. We found that 1. It was too easy and 2. You couldn't see the impact of your shots so well. We all love to see that zombie blood flow!

Thanks for the bug report.

Regarding movement speed. As you level up weapons you should see your movement speed increase with that weapon. Charlotte does modifications to make the weapons lighter.

Regarding dying - the game gets much harder later on. I still struggle with some levels and I've played more hours of this game than anyone. This game however is designed so that failing isn't just about dying. Getting only 1000-2000 points in a level is also failing because it won't give you many scavenges.

I've seen videos of people killing enemies just with melee attacks. That's a great way of staying alive, but its actually a poor strategy that will result in a terrible score per round which will make the game very grindy.

At its heart The a drowning is all about skill. Skilled players move faster through the game and need to spend less money. Get practicing!

 

Okay, I've played for a couple hours and am still having a lot of fun. Seems to be my latest addiction.

Since everyone is talking about the controls I'll reiterate my feelings. These controls are innovative and I love when developers create controls designed specifically for the touch screen instead of creating controls that simply are decent enough to get by on the touch screen. For this type of game the controls work wonderfully. For an online multiplayer game like NOVA or MC3 these controls probably wouldn't work, but for this game they are excellent. When the dev puts in regular dual stick controls I will definitely be sticking with the current scheme. But like I said, I hate playing NOVA and MC3 when I know how much better those type of games play with a controller. Honestly, the creative control scheme is what is addictive about this game and is making the game more enjoyable for me. If it had regular controls and I may have felt like it was just another arena shooter, albeit one with great graphics.

Some more suggestions for the dev...
When I first played with the rifle it never told me how to zoom. Frankly, I forgot it had a scope until I thought, "wait this thing has a giant scope on it let me try and pinch." I mean pinch to zoom was the obvious option, but a little message saying so would have at least reminded me I could do it.

Again with the rifle, I usually move when I'm reloading. I try to pinch out of scoped in order to move, but since it goes out of zoom when reloading, it goes right back to zoom when reloading has finished, even though I tried pinching out. That was one confusing sentence. Basically, keep registering my pinch while reloading so it'll stay zoomed out after reloading. I can elaborate if this doesn't make sense.

Some more "Level Complete" stats would be nice. Really I'd like to see my high score for that area and how my last round compared. Global leaderboards for each area would be awesome. Also, you could show my headshots.

Also, more stats when upgrading. Like showing how much each stat has improved instead of just showing the xp gained.

Again I'm having fun with this, and enjoy helping you make it the best game possible for worldwide launch. If you'd rather have me PM these suggestions then let me know. I'll keep them coming as I keep playing.

Thanks for reading my wall of text.

 

Sorry but I feel the need to butt in. How is this game about player skill? Any unskilled, inexperienced player seconds after downloading the game can drop $10 and have the most powerful weapon available, without the "skill" it takes to farm money and supplies to craft it or buy it or whatever. By going the F2P route, you've effectively eliminated any real challenge paying customers will get, while flipping the bird to non paying users with your energy system and difficulty spikes. This a pay to win, game, not a skill based one.

If you absolutely must go freemium to "reach more people" because of the initially free price tag, how about releasing two versions on the AppStore? One is free and stuffed with timers and energy systems and all that crap people here hate, the other is a paid app costing whatever you want to charge that has a single currency system, no timers and no energy system. That way you can reach the casual gamers who actually spend money on this sort of thing, while not alienating the more hardcore, traditional ones with pay to win pricing. Look at Phosphor's Dark Meadow for an example of this sort of thing.

 

Idk JBRUU, I gotta disagree with your first paragraph. I feel like you could have the most powerful gun in the entire game but if you can't use it or if you can't maneuver an arena with it then what's the point? You definitely need some skill to go hand in hand with that powerful weapon, especially if you're trying to reach that highscore.

But anyways, I totally agree with your second paragraph, I don't understand why the method that phosphor games uses isn't used elsewhere. I feel like it would cater to people on both sides of the freemium spectrum. Could be that it's flawed in some way but if so I can't see how :/

 

You can be the most skilled player in the world in regards to the controls, but the player who spends real money on guns and such will outclass you every time

In case you're interested here's a pertinent article from Eurogamer http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-13-saturday-soapbox-the-high-cost-of-free-to-play

 

I'm trying to find some kind of rebuttal to that but honestly I can't :/. You're absolutely right. I'm on the side that happens to like this game but don't get me wrong, I'm not spending a penny on the iap. Sorry Mr. Cousins. I honestly think that this game could have been much better. Not just a much better game but a better experience as well if only it were premium. (sorry but i feel that the 2 minute rounds are there so that we waste "energy" faster and buy more on impulse.) Granted the model for this game isn't as bad as a lot of other free to play games out there but I can't help but feel it's held back by it, and how would I be able to sleep at night knowing I'm backing up companies who use a model that is changing the way games are developed for the worse?

 

Oh, yeah, dude! I just sold my 64GB and got the new 128GB 4th gen. unit. Now I have no more issues!! Been complaining loudly for a long time and finally Apple came through with more space out of the box! I'm lovin' it!

 

Another problem is that all the 'zombies' look EXACTLY the same.
I also can't find a way to reload the weapon.

 

Hi again! Thanks for all the comments. They are really interesting.

I was comparing skilled and unskilled players, all other things being equal. Lets talk about non-spending players first. If we take two non-spending players, the skilled one will progress through the game much faster than the unskilled one as they will get more score = more scavenges per round = complete items faster.

Now lets talk about spending player - regarding your description of how the IAP weapon purchasing works, this isn't actually accurate - I'm guessing as you aren't really into buying IAP (which is fine by me, most people aren't) that you havent tried out the weapon store. I'll describe it for those who don't want to try it.

In The Drowning, when you chose to spend money on a weapon, you actually get a random, broken rare weapon. There is no way of selecting which weapon you get, it is selected at random by the game server. Once you get that broken weapon, you must still enter the game world and collect the prerequisite parts to complete it before you can use it.

So, not only are you not able to enter a store and simply purchase the best weapon, you are also forced to play the game to use it. Therefore, even with equally-spending users, if we compare a skilled and unskilled player, the skilled player will still progress though the game faster.

 

- There are 5 enemy types in the main game and more that you come across in time-limited events. You start to see the second type after getting past the first two levels (maybe 10-20 minutes into the game).

- Reloading is automatic.

 

Woosamahwhaaah? Bteaarg!