iPhone The Spatials (by Carlos Carrasco)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by PeteOzzy, May 5, 2014.

  1. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    Yes. In the window that popups up when you touch a planet, you will see a column of colored buttons, one for each officer class. Touch the one with the name of the officer you want to bench. This will display a listing of all the available officers for that role at the left of the window. Notice that the top option is "Available seat". If you select this option the slot for that officer will be made empty and she won't land with the crew. To put her back in just touch her in the left listing.

    Yes. Some numbers:

    1.0.0: drop rate of 35%, 10% chance of upper qualities, crates dropped items. AKA the infinite loot piñata. So ridiculous that you had to recycle like crazy every 2 minutes even with an huge inventory. Basically broken. We wanted to tune the game to be easy on the items, but it was WAY too easy.

    1.0.1: drop rate of 15%, everything else the same. It wasn't actually much of a difference because of the free loot in the crates, and there were dozens of crates in every planet, you just looted them by walking around the camps. Did those pirates really mean to leave a L15** sniper lying out there in a brown box? Not good. It's mean to take some effort :)

    1.0.2: drop rate of 20% at level 2 decreasing to 10% at level 10+. 2% chance of upper qualities. Only 2 "crates" per planet with potential items (find them, they usually are the ones with unusual graphics), rest are resource+credits.

    In order to balance the lower drops and qualities the shops were expanded to carry all qualities, more items, a higher level than their system, and lower prices than in earlier versions. Credits drops are also increased in later levels. The goal was to make shops and credits more relevant to the gameplay, and finding items more of a "wow lucky!" thing.
     
  2. Jorlen

    Jorlen Well-Known Member

    Jan 7, 2009
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    Yeah, admittedly it was easy to get skills before. If the game doesn't remain challenging, I usually get bored, so in this case, less is more.

    I have a ton of inventory slots that I won't need now though ;)
     
  3. JJE

    JJE Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2012
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    #103 JJE, May 23, 2014
    Last edited: May 23, 2014
    I think I hit an obscure bug.
    I have two soy resource icons in my inventory, they won't stack together and they both seem to be being used.

    What I think I did:
    I accidentally dragged my soy resource to the super collider while the crew was actively collecting soy resources from hydroponics. By the time I dragged the soy out of the collider there was a new soy resource in the inventory being collected to.
    In unrelated news:
    I built a juice bar in one corner of the shower room because...my team rolls that way.

    Also I'm using my extra inventory space to store extra ** high level skills to use in the super collider. Waste not want not.
     
  4. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    Yep, resource stacks can split sometimes, like you discovered, and for now the inventory UI code cannot re-stack them. Everything else should still work fine like you mention. I'm aware of the issue, but in the grand scheme of things, it's kind of minor :)

    Right now we are very deep into preparing the Early Access release for PC/Mac and doing concept/design work for the 2.0 roadmap. I'll keep you updated!
     
  5. JJE

    JJE Well-Known Member

    Feb 22, 2012
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    Something else awry that we both should have caught a few messages ago
    I unlocked cryogenic tanks making magenta slime, level 15... I didn't start collecting spores until it hit 16.
    So where was that slime coming from?
    Tanks produce slime without spores. That's why I had so much slime about.
    On the plus side the juice bar in my shower area now has a gelato machine. It's a party base!
     
  6. Cepharos

    Cepharos New Member

    Jan 6, 2013
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    Loving this one so far, was just expecting a building sim but when I beamed onto a planet and started running around... Instantly hooked.

    Literally the only gripe I have is the "drag to target" mechanic in combat though, in my opinion it feels a bit clunky / cumbersome. Perhaps generic tapping would work better? Aside from that, I can see myself dumping too much time into this and I'll certainly be looking forward to content updates!
     
  7. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
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    Oh dear, my bad Pete!

    I saw this thread about a week ago, but didn't even notice you post! Glad to see my sci-fi love is held high in the heart in the best obscure-yet-great-game finders ever ;)

    Now, let's get to business. I would definitely post my imps on this, but I don't have an iPad :D From what I've seen and read though, it looks extremely good. I don't count on this making it to phones one day, so I guess I'll just need to buy an iPad finally, haha.
     
  8. PeteOzzy

    PeteOzzy Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2013
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    I would have PMed you about it but figured the only reason you hadn't commented would be because you didn't have an iPad. At least this gem will be waiting for you alongside FTL and Battle Worlds: Kronos!
     
  9. JCho133

    JCho133 Well-Known Member

    Jul 27, 2012
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    Arg! Don't remind me!

    At least there was a positive to this, you reminded me about my sci-fi games thread ;)
     
  10. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    Yep. At least this one is free stuff hahaha

    It will be fixed in 1.0.3 (which is a bit ways off, we want to start the PC/Mac series first).

    We tried tap button + tap target and it felt worse. It's basically the same amount of motions but with an extra step. Single tap to fire without a button would been the best, we know (we could even preserve the target reticle by drawing it while you press the finger on the screen) but you have four possible attacks in a full group, so some kind of selection is needed. Plus it meant movement orders would have needed to be put into a different mode or be made "intelligent" depending on where you tap (this doesn't work well in a touchscreen realtime game imho.)

    The current system was the best combo of wanting to have single touch movement orders, more than one attack, and precise pointing, all in a realtime game. We know it's weird and unique, but we wanted to innovate and see how it goes. It will probably undergo some changes while the PC/Mac port is developed (for now it maps the number row keys to the skill buttons, with the reticle drawn while you press the key, so it's very similar to iPad, but faster to cast and the precision of the mouse makes it a pleasure. I don't want to lean too much on mouseover because it will make the mechanics unportable back to the iPad.)
     
  11. MetaGonzo

    MetaGonzo Well-Known Member

    May 7, 2009
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    #111 MetaGonzo, May 26, 2014
    Last edited: May 26, 2014
    Excellent game; positively dripping with potential. Always a pleasure to see a dev so engaged with their customers, too.
    Doubler and some coins bought; still feels like I'm ripping you off.

    My sole gripe would be with the aiming system; I think I'd sooner have a system where the fire button was pressed and held and then a target was tapped.

    Big fan here; keep it up.

    Edit: re. the aiming. What if the current system had an offset with crosshairs so that our fingers didn't get in the way?
     
  12. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    Then I have good news for you. After considering your feedback plus other we have gathered in the past weeks, and talking with my brother about it during the weekend, I will probably implement at least tap-button-then-tap-target for attacks. The second tap, while pressed, will still show the target reticle like now, and allow for the more precise pointing required for strategist skills, since I have to basically support an equivalent scheme for PC/Mac so the controls are not a total shock (as opposed to just puzzling like in iPad :) ). It's important enough that I will try to backport it to 1.0.3, so no need to wait for the final 2.0 iPad version.
     
  13. MetaGonzo

    MetaGonzo Well-Known Member

    May 7, 2009
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    And that's what you get from a dev who truly involves themselves in the community.

    Well played, sir. Well played.
     
  14. Jorlen

    Jorlen Well-Known Member

    Jan 7, 2009
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    Beat the game, had a blast. Thanks Carlos and team, I haven't enjoyed a game of this style for a long time. BTW the music is great, who did the tracks? Could have used a few more of them but what was there stuck in my head for days.

    I once again highly recommend this game and if you like it, buy the doubler (and/or another one of the packs) to show support!

    SPOILER!:

    Btw, I was literally laughing my arse off at the final stage. So many robots, I'm glad I had a really good grenadier!
     
  15. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    It's Creative Commons music from http://audionautix.com/

    We wanted to hire our own composer but the investment didn't look justified, and time has shown us we were right. If we raise enough money during the Early Access phase of 2.0 we will commission our own original score for sure, in the same style as the current one.

    Re: SPOILER!
    That was the idea with the last level! Did you figure that by destroying the factories in the surrounding camps the flood of robots stopped? We didn't want to put that info in the mission text, so the user had to discover it on their own to make the map more unique
     
  16. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    We are gearing up to release our first Early Access build for PC/Mac very soon. I made a post in the TIGSource forums about the development of The Spatials and how it changed in concept and tech for the past 18 months. Check it out!

    http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=41097.0
     
  17. Rosso

    Rosso Well-Known Member

    Dec 17, 2010
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    Carlos, you guys are the best! Just wanted to say it out loud (and you know my reasons)!

    Cheers, best of luck!
     
  18. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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  19. klink

    klink 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Jul 22, 2013
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    USA
    Cool article and I'm sorry for you guys having to be the subject of it. I greenlighted you guys on steam. Just curious could you make an in-app purchase to disable advertising? In my mind that would be the best of both worlds. Free to those who want to try it or don't mind ad's. Ad free for those who are willing to pay.
     
  20. carlosww

    carlosww Well-Known Member

    May 6, 2014
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    We added the option to remove ads via the Credit Doubler IAP at the same time we introduced them, in 1.0.1, released mid-May. Anyway, apart from how good/bad the monetization is in the game, the real problem is the lack of promotion. We have learned a lot about it in the past month and we are working to do it much better job for 2.0, which is going to be a reboot of the game anyway, and will be promoted as such.
     

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