Sorry for the confusion guys, I had some issues with provisioning and the Testflight uploader app was mucking me around for a bit. Everything should be working now with the latest build.
Thanks for pointing out the portait bug for the quests screen, fixed that just now.
Up and running. First let me say that the combination of artwork and controls is enough to make me grin even before the game starts. I like the way that the game puts you in the role of the rampaging beastie (like the old arcade game Rampage) and rewards a combination of simple action with some decision making. Like everyone else, I’m confused about the right actions for handling the missiles. And I haven’t made it far enough yet to see if the challenge / reward curve holds up over prolonged play.
I have made it far enough to feel like a piker in my own designs. This is just lovely.
One thing. Is there a way I can sort of scale my movements, allowing me to keep my fingers closer to the corners and not obscure so much of the screen during play?
I keep getting my claws jammed shut, where I have to lift my fingers to “reset” them. Not sure what I’m doing, I’m frantically trying to grab things when it happens.
Are we supposed to crush the cars (subs?), and then eat the tasty morsels inside, or do we just feed them into our giant maw?
I’m thinking a one-page “help” screen may be handy.
It would be nice if the arms would regrow. I miss my arm. Or maybe they do and I just didn’t get enough amubulences?
The claws jamming shut is a new one to me. They are quite sensitive, I may introduce some options for this among other things. Help screen or some interactive equivalent might be a good idea too. Ambulances do regrow claws, one should be enough you just need to eat it.
O. M. G.
I had it backgrounded, came back, he was snoring. FIVE STARS.
I want the Quests screen to not be sideways and broken.
Oh wow, @John, this is a masterpiece. I love the carnage! One session was not enough to figure out all the aspects, like is eating everything good? And I did get stuck claws a few times, maybe cos I went off the screen in the chaos! I think the relative volume of the ambulance is a bit too loud, but good to alert you.
I kept grabbing my eyeballs by mistake!
Same qn as Fred on eating everything.
You can actually throw your eyeballs into things. They do a lot of damage (although it’s really hard to do).
Eating everything is almost always good, with the exception of the garbage truck. That will reverse in front of your mouth and dump garbage into it. It makes the crab turn blue and not be able to eat anything else for the duration of the effect.
I really like the light-sabre truck.
Agree on the ambulance sound, I think it should fade out after a few seconds.
Yes, I loved the light-saber as well. I got a few momentary freezes after leaving the upgrade screen and going back to the main one, seems to be based on time spent there?
Hooray! I finished to the end, and figured out some stuff. You can catch the energy blasts and fire them back, you can reflect the alien laser with an open claw, easier to use open claws on asteroids… lotsa nice buffs in the store.
Love the music, very whimsical and nice match for wacky space game.
I think you will need more ‘levels’ though, perhaps you had this planned? I’m not much of a gamer, and I made it through twice. The buffs help, but if you want folks to buy more credits you will need more bad guys.
I was a bit confused about how the coins, damage, etc in the space bits relate to the amount of money you get to spend at the upgrade shop.
Great game, @John, would be good to go on endlessly rather than end I think. It is just fun being a giant space crab.
Thanks for your feedback guys, I will definitely look into the issues you have raised.
@Fred, there has been a significant amount of experimentation with the game loop, and I did experiment with an infinite game, but at some point we decided to have an end to give the game some sense of closure or accomplishment. I realise now that the current content is somewhat limited.
Given time I would like to have at least 4 bosses, and perhaps a super boss. The format I was going for was that each time you reached the end you would be treated to a new boss until you reached the super boss, after which you would encounter a random boss from then on. An alternative would be to just make the game longer, so that it has all 4 bosses and the final super boss, which would be a big accomplishment to reach and beat. What do you think?
Hi @John, I think the content is great, and you could get a lot more mileage out of it. There are so many ways you could go, but it comes down to how much more time you are going to spend on it.
I would prefer it not to end, after all Space Invaders didn’t - it just got harder. This is kind of an inversion of Space Invaders, as we are playing as the giant space crab!
I got used to the rhythm of the different foes turning up, and didn’t mind these ‘raids’. In my mind we are the big bad boss monster. You could reuse the boss satellite and I would happily chew through them. Like @Mark says, the game is reminiscent of Rampage, which was about wreaking havoc rather than fighting end bosses. Disclaimer: I never finished Rampage!
So I think you could be going down a rabbit hole if you want to make more and more unique content. What about making the cops turn up more frequently, in more numbers, or combine waves of missle/asteroid disasters with the usual phases? Faster firing rates?
Anyway, that’s what I reckon. Love this game - sandbox mode would be good also maybe if you just want to eat without being shot at?
After playing through several more games, I find myself getting a little frustrated. The control scheme is very intuitive, but stretching for ships often leaves much of the screen behind my hand. Also, when the two claws get close together, it sometimes seems confused about which touches go with which claw, and I’m forced to lift my hands for a moment to get fingers and claws back into sync.
I’d still like to see an option to scale movement, especially when it comes to positioning the claws, so that my fingers could stay near the bottom of the screen while stretching a claw upwards.
I really like those moments in the game that let you move past the bump and pinch mechanic, such as when reflecting a laser. Im hoping that as I buy out the remaining claw options, I’ll see more points that expand on the play mechanic.