Isotope: Game discussion

Thanks for the in depth feedback Sierra. A lot of good ideas in that post.

 

holy crap. the game is freakin amazing. the game is long.... i.e probably a good couple of hours and even then you're still coming back to play. it's like a survival shooter i.e Minigore, iDracula, but mainly based off of Geomatry Wars. Except you can upgrade your ship with all kinds off goodies

presonaly, it's one of my top 3 games on my iTOuch

 

I actually have some option/control requests, if you guys would be so kind.

First off, I was hoping that you might put in an option to make the dual sticks stationary. I believe they're that way in the lite version, and it'd be nice to have an option to not have them move as you pick up and put down your thumb. If this is already in the game, I apologize, but I haven't been able to find it.

Secondly, is there any chance you could make a firing option that used the second stick to push the direction of firing with respect to the ship, as opposed to the field? I.e. when you move the firing control "down" on the second stick, you fire from the rear of the ship, regardless of which direction you're facing. I have no clue if this would be a good control scheme, but it'd be another set of options that people would have available to play with, and more options is never a bad thing.

Third - how about implementing cs.one type controls? Have you guys thought about this? Again, more options == good.

Hopefully you'll consider some of these - thanks for listening!

 

Go to the options screen, scroll down to DPad and set the option to Fixed to make the sticks stationary.

We will try some of your other suggestions for controls and see how they play out. Thanks for the feedback!

 

It would be cool if you had a bullet called "concussion" or something that shot a bullet like normal but when it hit an enemy a shock wave goes out from it like a ripple and damaged other enemies. That would really help when being swarmed.

 

Ah hah! I didn't even think to scroll down to see if there were more options - I figured I must have been missing something. Sometimes I'm not so smart.

But thanks for the great game! I'm not usually a big fan of these types of games, but the RPG elements have sucked me in.

Edit: Oh, I know what else I was going to ask for. Any chance we can get the ability to test the ships out before you buy them? Nothing major, but just a room with a few simple enemies so we can see how the ship fires? When you're starting out and don't know what each of the settings mean in the ships info, it'd be great to be able to take the ship for a test run so we can figure it out.

 

This is very funny coming from the person who wasn't able to find the options that were already in the game.

I think there is a lot to be said for picking a good way of doing something, and then sticking to that.

More options = more stuff to test for each new release, more possible stuff to break and have bugs, more things for the developers to work on besides extra good content, more fragmentation of the player experience.

 

While I suppose I deserve the jab, I stick by my opinion that more options == better. While I agree, implementing controls ala cs.one might be a slightly more time consuming process, the other suggestion wouldn't take long to implement/test at all - you're just changing the direction of fire from absolute to referential - it's just adding in an offset equal to the heading of the ship. And I'm not expecting them to jump right on those ideas and implement them before new content - but since they're kind enough to ask for suggestions and read this thread, I thought I'd make some.

Adding in new control schemes doesn't take away from the experience anyone has from it, it just allows people to find the experience that suits them the best. Sure, it may "fragment" the player base - I may enjoy a different control scheme than you do, but how does that affect your enjoyment of the game? It just allows for the game to reach more players, by offering a wider variety of schemes for control.

Your "good way" of doing something might not be equal to my "good way" of doing something - what's the harm in having more "good ways" implemented?

 

I love the little "enterprise" ship. Its called Bromine/Cobalt/Titanium depending on the shop where you buy it from. It would be great to have unique looking ships though. It would probably be a lot of work to design so many unique ships, but I thought I'd through it out there.
As far as I am concerned priority should be more levels and new bosses. I finished the game and think its just brilliant. My favourite ship is Ju. I use its maxed out weapon like a light sabre.

I think that current controls work very well. I agree though more options are better. I think that most players would love to fiddle with various control schemes to see which ones suit them best. I must add, however, that after fiddling with existing controls I ended up using the default options anyway.

 

Very high replayability. Plethora of things to purchase, chances are you'll be generally interested in maxing out the best ships available, checking out all the different firing types, etc. I've played through the campaign several times with different ships and the levels still haven't gotten old. I would definitely recommend getting it.

 

This!

Blue Attack is still on my iPod only because I occasionally want to do a bit more than survive. Add in an "escort survival" mode or a rescue mode and I'll finally uninstall Blue Attack and Dropship.

 

So what shop do I purchase this God like 'Ju' ship from? Right now I am stuck with the Star Trek ship, and it is so freakin huge!

 

We just brainstormed some ideas of how to implement different objectives in the levels and survival mode. We will probably implement them in the update after the one we are working on right now.

 

Hi UJP! Just a quick one here. I think the Snake boss from level 105 onwards have a bit of a bug with it's HP. I've learned to just give up now if I get it and start over, as it's quicker to get back up to 150 million points & hope for a different boss than to try and kill it.

I've had it a few times now where I stop time and stare it in the face with 2 x Mega Laser 3 and it doesn't even kill the first head, then I spend the next 20 minutes flying circles around it before it finally dies. Compared to the other bosses it is waaaaay to strong from 105 onwards.

As for suggestions, I think it would be cool if the other $1.5million ships were evened out a bit more. If you look at the All Time Leaderboard, it's 90% Cass & one Ju. I'd like to play the others, but they're just not strong enough. I suppose the most reliable way to see if they are strong enough it to tweak them until they show up in the All Time LB hehe. I'm just conscious that you put all that effort into the other ships and so few people are using them.

In the way of abilities, it would be great if there were something like a mega laser that you could aim with your target pad instead of the movement pad. It should probably be weaker than the mega laser, but something like a plasma launcher or so to give some kind of option. Other abilities like the black hole and bomb just isn't strong enough to make them really useful, so you end up using the same ones over and over.

For modules, if you think about it, they don't actually serve any purpose. All they do is put you through the frustration of having to farm some maps until you can purchase them, but after that they don't do anything. I mean the choice of modules is a no brainer, so everyone will have the same thing. It would be far more interesting if they actually did something, like have modules that respectively increases the effect/size/duration of your abilities, modules that increases health, increases firepower, things like that. And have a bunch of them so that it is a toss-up about which to choose, and you can feel & see the effect of the one you chose.

Satellites are the same. The healing one is the only one that is worth anything. The others are way to weak. I know most of this stuff was designed for the campaign, but Survival is what is going to keep most people coming back, and these kind of things can make both the campaign and survival more interesting I think.

I just don't want the ship/abilities/module choices to be obvious. The more balanced it is, the better its longevity will be, which eventually translates to more people buying it because it's such good value as you can play it over and over with different set-ups trying to find what works best.

Hehe didn't mean for this to be a long post lol In any case, awesome game!!

 

Something like a weekly challenge would be a good way to give the other ships some love.

Like who can get the highest score using the hydrogen ship, or even with a set build of abilities, modules and satellite.

That way the developers wouldn't have to tackle the impossible task of making all the ships, weapons + abilities balanced

 

That is a smart idea. These web levels they've been linking us to, the level should be setup with a specific ship like you said with a set build. I love it, and i agree it is impossible to try balance the ships, which isn't even necessary imo.

 

I agree that it would be hard to balance it, but it doesn't have to be completely balanced. At least just not as totally unbalanced as it is now. Power them up a bit so that at least it isn't so obvious that Cass with healing & ML3, Stop3, etc & usual modules is the thing that pretty much every plays with...

 

With the modules, everyone will pick the same ones, so like I said, all they do is put you through the pain of getting enough money to buy them. I know they make a difference, but their presence doesn't add value to the gameplay. The game would be better served by something else being in its place.

Healing satellite is the only thing that will help you go the distance in Survival. It's the only regenerator out there... What's the furthest you've gone in Survival?