I’ve been working on finishing my first iOS game lately and I think I’ve reach the point where I’m pretty happy with the results. Now I’ll start testing it with friends and family who own Apple devices.
What was supposed to be the main game was finished a few weeks ago. I finished all the ships and special powers and the 2 player “Brawl” mode was done. But then I thought I should add a 1 player mode, some kind of challenge that could have an online leader board. That way, you can play the game and practice your skills when there’s no one to play with around. So I created some aliens with the help of my son, Rudi, and applied some different behaviors to each.
I also added a planet you have to protect and the “Challenge” mode was born. Some aliens will try to shoot at you, some hit you and some will go for the planet. And then there’s a boss every 10 levels which not only shoots at you but also launches smaller aliens every few seconds. I haven’t been able to kill it yet, but I think I will be with a little practice…
Then I thought… if I already have everything set up for two players, why not add a cooperative option to this mode? And so with a little more work, the game becomes a lot more interesting….
So as I think about testing the game with other people without my assistance, I’m basically afraid of two things.
First, that something might go wrong when playing the game in other devices… I’m specially worried about performance on older hardware (my only testing machine is an iPad2), but also about playing in the little screen of an iPhone…
The second is the fact that the game might be too hard for some people…
I added an easier control method because I’m sadly realizing most people don’t like thrust/turn games such as Asteroids and can’t seem to do well at them… So I added absolute controls (drag in the direction you want to go). Still, the ship has to turn first and then accelerate and some people don’t seem to understand that… at least right away…
I also gave in and added visible joysticks. They can be made transparent or invisible, but they do help to visualize how the controls are working.
The big box is the space where your movement will not produce an action and can be adjusted under the sensibility settings. dragging the stick over its top accelerates your ship. Dragging out to the sides will turn left or right. And if you drag down it will turn the engine off (you can also do that by releasing your finger). Of course, diagonal movement as seen in the picture will produce both turning and accelerating at the same time, which is useful sometimes, especially with that yellow ship… (which btw is about to crash…)
Anyway… I’m happy to finish the game and I think it’s pretty good. If you liked the old vector graphics games and thrust/turn space games and have another person around that also liked them, then it might be a perfect fit 🙂