You could make the region much larger than the dial while not being full screen. When I played it I drew circles right round the screen and wondered why the ship wasn't going to where I was pointing. Try it, it moves in a very confusing way. I only noticed the dial when I switched control modes and tried to work out what each of your icons meant. I hate to say it but if I hadn't been talking to you on this thread I probably would have lost interest before I ever tried switching back to touch mode. If I had I wouldn't have realised that your game was anything more than a nicely optimised GL demo. Sadly, iOS is a platform where first impressions are everything. games are so cheap that you only get half a cup of coffee's worth of attention from most of your customers. Tilt to Live has icons with pictures of people holding the device. I'd love to have the data on which one people use most. I would suggest not bothering with calibration though. I can see the attraction of letting people fine tune it but I always worry that I'm playing a game badly because I calibrated it stupidly. More confusion and I have stopped playing games because of it.
That is really useful feedback. Thanks. I did try having an area around the dial that worked, but it the ideal distance was so far out, it was not too much difference to allow the whole screen and save on a distance check. The best solution probably involves a total revision of the help and control selection systems. I'll try Tilt to Live and then think about it.
That's the kind of optimization attitude that's great for making a 60 FPS shooter but possibly not appropriate for your touch handling code By the way, thanks for starting this thread, participating in it and playing your game has inspired me to change my desktop to an image with the words "Eliminate Confusion". I'm starting to think it might be rule #1 of game design.
I did allow for some of my test group being quite wild on the controls, so the extended control area did cover more than half the screen. The optimisation was the deciding factor on if I should leave it in. It is one of the things I will look at again as part of the revision. Your feedback has been very useful. I now know there is confusion, so I will work to eliminate it. p.s. I've just looked at your website. Very impressive CV. I guess we must know a few people in common. I used to work at Acclaim Studios London, with everyone scattering after it closed, many to companies on your list, for example Jeremy Elford who worked at Lost Toys.
I've been working on the update to the game. I thought I'd share a couple of images for some feedback. The first image is of the main menu. GlennX said he hadn't been sure what the icons meant for the control options. I have now made it into a slider labelled "control". The slider button label says the name of the selected control option, "left dial", "tilt" or "right dial". There are also new sliders for music and sound effect volumes. The second image is of the instructions. The player craft is constantly rotating around the circular path it has in the game. The phone graphic shows the device movement that creates those moves. The extra player icon shows the touch point to create the movement for the dial options. All 3 move together. The craft is constantly shooting to reinforce the automatic shooting text. I hope that is all clearer. What do you think?
That's pretty cool but I really liked your old icons, it was those that explained the dial! It's just that I didn't notice them until I switched from touch to tilt and back again.
Thanks Glenn. I added the sliders for the volume as I will be playing the new music throughout the game, not just in the menus, so I wanted separate control of the music and sfx. It was then logical to have a consistent format for all setting selectors. Don't worry, the icons has survived in one form. The phone shape has become the display at the centre of the instructions. I was expecting to spend 2 days on the update. I am already at day 10, but almost there. I keep finding little bits here and there that I can improve. For example, the explosions have new shaders, slightly different sizes and new audio. I see big differences, hopefully players will see them. By the way Glenn, I noticed you appeared in the sandbox high score list for TiltStorm, not the live list (as have a couple more people). I didn't know that could happen. I assumed you were logged in on a sandbox account at the time? If that is the cause, I will appear on lots of other sandbox tables.
I submitted my update on Wednesday. My new name for the game is ShootStorm. There are quite a lot of updates as shown by the What's New list that will be on the App Store: New app name Improved performance for smoother gameplay Revised controls New music New title screen Revised menus with additional options New iPad menu formatting New animated instructions New help prior to first use of touch or tilt controls New explosion graphics and audio Revised player generation effect New bullet graphics Revised craft graphics As you suggested GlennX, I have altered the touch controls so that they only operate near the dial control, but they still do have a reasonable area of operation so that fingers don't slide off the controls easily. I only got an iPad 1 when they were being sold off at the launch of iPad 2. My limited testing until then meant it was really just an upscaled iPhone app. My last update got iPad specific controls. Now I have spent the time to tailor the rest of the game, especially the menus so that they don't look oversized. Here is a new screenshot of the game: There is also an new icon to show the revised explosions (it is taken from an in-game screenshot at a higher resolution):
The updates have been approved. I am planning on releasing them on Tuesday. Any announcement today would get lost in the Monday morning email pile, tomorrow everyone will be busy following the WWDC keynote. I have done a new YouTube video to go with the update. I hope it is a lot better than the old one that I have placed below for comparison. New:
it is not just his avatar for why they call him Mr. Ugly - but seriously, his comments are valid and it doesn't hurt to read them. while it may not feel like he is treating you right, keep in mind people can say whatever they want.. your the one he is talking about, lap it up
I did take his comments on board this time as he explained what he saw as the problem. All sorted and everything is OK. The graphics have been tweaked and many other little improvements to the game. Part of the problem is the YouTube video. The software I had been editing with had slowed down the gameplay. A few tests with different options has improved that. Another problem is I have tried multiple different video cameras, but none have coped well with the contrast between the black background and bright graphics. My iPhone 4 has done best combined with shooting the video with the iPad brightness set to the lowest it can be. I also went with a paler scene around the iPad and shot it off-angle to help. The YouTube video is still not great, but better. Don't you think? EDIT: ShootStorm has now been released. You can get to the Touch Arcade thread via by signature below.
