Definitely strange. I haven't gotten any repeat ships yet and I don't even have the sloth yet. Have you tried uninstall/reinstall? You might loss all those sloths, but as we saw with "leave me alone" last week it helped fix some issues for some players. On another note, do you mind telling me your Game Center ID. Just trying to figure out who the players of this game are here vs. Game Center. It's more fun when you know whose score you're trying to beat.
Nice work on that mock up! I really like that idea, it's clean, simple and readable. I'll play around with the shield for the next build, and I might not stray too far from your suggestion I haven't managed to knock off your highscore yet either Those shielded enemies might have a few too many HP I'll have a look at that this weekend. I want the game to difficult at the end, but not impossible. I might knock a HP off the shield, or maybe lower their spawn rate. I agree right now it feels a touch too punishing at the end. I like the idea of the reward for repeated losses. At the moment I've got a streakbreaker. I keep track of losses, and if you don't get anything 4 times in a row, then I guarantee a new ship next. It is a fine line to walk, I don't want it to be too grindy, but then if I give away everything too quickly I won't be able to keep up with the new content and people will get bored!
Wait, did I just get killed by a hamburger? That's freakin' awesome. Just got in a few minutes with the update. Got a new ship, the Mega 2600. No sloths yet, but I did get a duplicate, Classic Green. I like the new 2600 series ships. They fit right in. I also like the new Mr. Mushroom art. Not as much with Pizza Man though. It doesn't "feel" like Pac-Man, it just kind of looks like a pizza. Its awesome how you went with the name change for the Phone Booth. You could also go with Call Box or Police Box if you think Police Call Box is too long or not as snappy as the other ship names. (2 minutes passes) I just read the post where you posted your Game Center name, so I'll stop telling you about Dr. Who now. In that post you also mentioned the new shields. They are tough. It also depletes the feeling of progression from the beginning of the game. Maybe starting off with no shields then 1hp shields then 2hp shields and it can keep going as far as you think is right for the game. Is it intentional that the whole game speeds up, not just your ship, when you get the speed power up? This is different from what I'm used to. It's not really a problem, I would actually like to see a setting that enabled this mood. Also, prior to this update, I'm sure I saw enemy fire pass right through my ship and I'm "positive" I've been blown up without getting hit. Now I've only noticed these during intense moments, so the latter could just be from me missing something, but I'm 99% sure I saw a shot go right in front of my tardis. Edit: Just got Mr. Pizza and I take back what I said. He looks real good on the screen during game play. Still no sloths.
The idea of ramping up the shield strength is cool - a friend suggested making them look a little like a wifi symbol, which would clearly communicate how many times you need to put before you can punch through. I'll play around with the idea for the next build It's interesting you mention blowing up without being hit, because I've wondered the same thing too. It could be a bug, or it could be that I've simply missed a bullet and it's destroyed me. Maybe I need a better visual cue to hang around after death so you're really sure what got you. I'll have a think about that one too.
Last night I may have found the answer to the dying without being shot mystery. I was killed by a ship hitting me from underneath. It was careening out of control after I shot it and the little bastard left the screen and came back from the bottom. I never noticed before because I was only looking for bullets trying to keep them in front of my ship. Here's the screen shot of my death. You can see the ship and its trajectory.
Hey everybody! A preview of what I've been working on for the next build I've been changing the way the shields work based on all that great feedback I've been getting. I'm submitted the build as we speak (I make the mistake of updating to iOS 9.1 on my phone, which means a world of update pain), and the build should be available mid week.
Signed up for beta too. The blue banner at the top of your site made me think you should make a poker chip/dice etc game that looks like that
Thanks for signing up! I really appreciate it. When I'm making something mostly by myself, getting all the objective feedback is really helpful. I'll update the beta list when I push out the next release, so should just be a few days. I've been thinking of a new way to earn coins - some kind of objective system. I'm not 100% on it yet, but I'm thinking something like "Shoot an Invader 5 times". When you complete an objective, you earn some sweet coins. Any thoughts on something like that?
An objective system would be cool. I'm a fan of the rolling 3 objective items system like in Tiny Wings and Ski Safari, etc. This way I have more than one goal to focus on and don't get bogged down if the "Shoot an invader 5 times" goal is hard to achieve - I can focus on another, like "Don't shoot for 15 seconds". Also, regarding shielded enemies, I thought a cool one would be an enemy with a bottom shield that can never be destroyed, but the ship flips 180 degrees every N seconds. This way you can only shoot it when it's "belly" is exposed. Could make a great occasional tough enemy.
I really like the new look of shielded enemies and the increasing shield strength! The difficulty balance is very welcome too, although it still gets pretty hard after 300 points - if I lose all power-ups after that point I only last a few seconds. I was thinking maybe the ship's regular weapon could slowly increase in either power or fire rate (maybe at every 100 points or by time of play) so the player would have a little more chance against the harder invaders. And Johnno's idea is great! It could work like a boss enemy! Anyways, I got lucky again with the powerup chain and got a new highscore!
