I sent an email to Touch Arcade. This website could be the first to publish in-game screenshots of BOT! They have until May 25, 2011 to respond. Also, I've been testing Game Center Leaderboards... http://photics.com/testing-game-center-leaderboards It's not as smooth as I like it. (I'm very picky!) I might have to get creative about how I present this feature. OK, I'm going back to work! Thank you for your interest in this game!
Hehe... It's easy to get excited about a game when the dev is as enthusiastic about the project as you are! Hope TA gets interested, and is the first to show screens! Good luck! BTW- the character in the GameCenter pic looks pretty damn cool!!
I just found this thread and have known about this game for about 20 minutes, and it already feels like I've been waiting forever for it to come out. You really know how to get people hyped up
From your website: Mini Games (Especially pinball) Ok, from my experience with app store pinball games, the overall gameplay (table design + graphics + physics + scoring mechanics) either fall into: Junk (useless),mediocre, enjoyable (almost there, but something just doesn't feel right), EPIC (gameprom) or Hate it/Love it categories. I'm highly skeptical about this 'mini-game'. Is this an in-joke, or a serious attempt? Point I'm making is either make it good, or just ditch it (the effort may not be worth it). And adding pinball mini-game in an RPG is . Moving on to the game itself: Is ipod supported? Gameplay: please fill me up. I'm not following this (until now). Not bothered to catch up myself... Graphics: 2D/3D? Plane or first/third person?
It was an idea to give the game more entertainment value. But now, I don't think it's necessary either. While I don't think the idea is terrible, because mini-games do work... like in Final Fantasy VII and Legend of the Mystical Ninja... I think it's better to focus on making the overall game better. For those following along, if you think there should be mini-games in BOT, post up here. If it looks like a lot of people actually want mini-games, maybe I'll put some mini-games in BOT. That will likely push back the launch though. If not, I can move the pinball idea to my next project where it better fits! This game is quite playable on an iPod touch (Second Generation). That's the lowest iOS device that supports Game Center... http://www.apple.com/game-center/ ...so that's the lowest testing point. BOT will probably run on first generation iOS devices too, but that's not the recommended hardware for this game. The minimum iOS version is currently set at 3.0. Heh, well the game is not going to be released for a few weeks, so there's still time to catch up. Basically, the main character is TANK. He a giant robot that roams around with a gun and a sword, fighting other giant robots that are hostile to the remaining humans. There are no lame thumbsticks here. The control system has been specifically designed for iOS. It's a top-down RPG, with 360° range of movement.
I, myself, don't like mini-games, and think that they distract from the actual gameplay... I view them more as filler than a gameplay element. =o/ Just my opinion...
The plan is to have volume controls — for both sound effects and background music — in the option menu. You can turn off the game music. So if your iOS device supports multi-tasking, you can listen to your iPod music while playing BOT. To be sure, I just tested it out with some freestyle music. HA HA... it works
Ok, I might be getting skeptical again here. No thumbsticks sounds great but 360 (how do you get that degree sign there) movement + attacking + everything else? You're either going to launch the game with broken controls or a perfect system. Interesting... Anyway, is this going to be real time? (sure sound like it) Back to mini-games. I'm not generally interested in 'stand-alone' mini-games that detract the player from the core gameplay, but others eg. fishing (Aralon) or crafting etc that are actual tasks of the core game would sure be nice.
I'm really happy with the game controls. It's a secret though, which is one of the main reasons I haven't shown game footage. I think it's so beautiful how you can shoot at your enemies from afar, and then when they're in range, stab them with the sword. It might take a little practice to get used to the controls, but I think it's quite satisfying. The shoot-stab combo can be done with one finger. I worked hard on getting the aesthetics right like with sound effects. I like the way the game sounds while pulling off the shoot-stab combo. Pop... pop... pop... pop... crunch... squish... thud! If I had to say what makes BOT special... Inexpensive price. I'm setting it to tier-1. That's 99¢ in the United States. There are some great RPGs on the iTunes App Store, but a lot of them are more than 99¢ Auto-Rotational support (Play in landscape or portrait. The game doesn't care) The Controls It's specifically built for iOS. Retina display 146,800,640 pixels of exploration The Aesthetics BOT is basically a retro-style 2D top-down shooter, but I think it has a great look. The combat is real-time. Skepticism is good. I think it's better for you to be doubtful about the game, and then be impressed by the game's quality, rather than the game failing to meet expectations. I'm not trying to hype up the game. Heh, but I am very excited about it. I don't claim that BOT is the best RPG ever, but I do think I'm hitting my design targets... nice graphics, good sound effects / music, big area to explore, challenging combat and solid controls.
you should use the built in API to check and see if music is playing, and automatically mute your own music when this is the case. if you force the user to mute your music, that is just a bad user experience.
Well... that is a limitation of the SDK. It would be nice to make Xcode customizations, but I can't. That's very frustrating, as are some other annoyances. But if I built this with just Xcode, it might not be done until September... of 2015. It bothers me that I can't make changes like this, but I took a look at some of the top games... Tiny Wings, Angry Birds and Cut the Rope don't seem to have automatic silencing of background music while iPod music is playing.
Well after skimming through this thread, this is definitely a game that I'm looking forward to. Really like the sound of how it plays, and the style of game. I wish you luck with this one
Maybe the Touch Arcade email is broken, or my email address is accidentally on a spam list. Heh, because the editors of this site have still not replied to my email about an exclusive preview of BOT. They still have until May 25, 2011 to respond. It's discouraging when stuff like that happens, but the feedback in this thread has been great! So, here's another quick update while my game loads for another test... The Background artwork is complete! I didn't cut corners. It's 146,800,640 pixels big on retina displays! I'm working on adding options today. There have been some difficulties, but going faster than I expected... I also like how it looks. I changed the way the game starts up. Instead of Splash Screen, Title Screen, and start Game... it's just Title Screen and straight into the game. This helps with localization issues and it speeds up the game — less waiting to play. It take about 30 minutes to build an Ad-Hoc version my game. HA HA, so testing is getting to be more tedious. (It's why I can write long replies like this.) BOT is getting close to done. I'm really excited about this project! OK, back to work
The game sounds amazing! Btw r u thinking of recruiting some beta testers to test the game for feedback or a crash/bug log?
I never knew it can take half an hour to build Ad-Hocs. I know have even more respect for game devs who do beta testing. So if you do decide to let Touch Arcade members beta test BOT than I'd be happy to help
Did I miss it or is there really no screen shots of this game? Seems like one of the posts a couple months back suggested there would be a gameplay video in three weeks. Is that out? Edit...it states late April/Early May for the gameplay video.
