Blue Skies Air Force Academy: Official Thread

[RPGGuy]

Blue Skies Air Force Academy is now available in the App Store.

Blue Skies is a top down 2D shooter along the lines of Zone 66 or Desert Strike. Screenshots and videos are available at www.RockingPocketGames.com (http://www.rockingpocketgames.com).

I'm the developer of the game and would like to thank everyone who has bought the game so far. I'd like to hear your comments, good or bad, and will be making some updates to the game based on what you would like.

[mavis]

Blue Skies Air Force Academy is now available in the App Store.

Blue Skies is a top down 2D shooter along the lines of Zone 66 or Desert Strike. Screenshots and videos are available at www.RockingPocketGames.com (http://www.rockingpocketgames.com).

I'm the developer of the game and would like to thank everyone who has bought the game so far. I'd like to hear your comments, good or bad, and will be making some updates to the game based on what you would like.Nice to see another developer active on the boards, thanks.

As for the game, it looks nice - but like many others, I'm waiting for the price to drop a bit. After spending $250+ on apps so far, seeing other $10 apps with either a high level of polish (Asphalt 4) or great replay value (Galcon) and even some great games for WELL under $10 (Dizzy Bee, deBlob, Moto Chaser, ToyBot Diaries, Texas Hold'Em, etc) I'm reluctant to spend $10 on this app - it just doesn't seem like a fair price compared to some of the other great games available. But that's just my opinion.

If you're unwilling to drop to the price a bit, you might consider offering future games at a substantial discount for at least the first 10,000 downloads, or a prescribed amount of time - it's a nice way to reward early adopters, it creates a sense of urgency with your customers, and it drives positive reviews right out of the gate. I for one would have been first in line if you had offered this game at, say, $5.99 for the first two days or something. ;)

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll be picking this one up whenever the price drops. :)

[MattB]

I'm quite enjoying it. The controls really make the game feel fun, it's really spot on. And how can you not enjoy a game that doesn't mention ninjas in helicopters and pirates in tanks?

You should consider making a Lite version so people can demo the game and see if they really want to spend $10 on it. I'd hate to see people pass it up just because they don't feel like it's worth the price.

[vandy1997]

It's way too expensive. These games should be offered at $5.99. I tend to play them two or three times and then remove them from my iPhone. There are too many games out there, and a low price will help you get noticed. Then you can charge a bit more ($7.99) for future games. However, I believe that developers should offer a discount initially to increase demand. The goal should be to make the top 25 list for as long as possible so that you get exposure.

[RPGGuy]

I may make a demo, after a couple of updates are made. I've got some things that didn't make it into the initial release, plus some suggestions from other people.

I just quit my day job to make iphone games full time, so once I can afford to drop the price on this and future games I will :)

[BATTLE BORN]

Mavis hit it right on the nose. I'm very excited to play your game, I love the style. but It's hard to justify the price tag for all of the mentioned reasons.

and in my honest opinion, if you've quit your job to focus on games, you'd better do something drastic (like a promotional price) to get people interested in your game and your company. I really hope you aren't trying to make a mortgage payment off of one overpriced game which (according to you) isn't even finished. (more power to ya if you are...)

I give credit where credit is due, and I'm really not one to bicker about a few bucks if I believe in the product or person. but it's just the principle of the matter....

other developers are taking care of their customers with introductory prices, FAIR prices, HIGHLY polished games, Innovative gameplay/features, etc... and because of that I'll support them 100%

Just don't expect an overwhelming amount of support with that house payment if you're not willing to take care of the people playing your games.
(and let's face it, the whopping 11 reviews in the app store aren't exactly raving)

more people will buy it at a lower price (myself included). This will give you more credibility as a developer, and will only help your sales.

Follow the trends being set in the store. everybody else notices them, and we can wait as long as you can.....;)

P.S. I only rant because I have high hopes for this game, and you as a developer. I'd like to see you succeed, and I think that you could really create some buzz with your game if you decide to take the advice of the community. But Just like any business, you're gonna have to sacrifice a little if you want to see the big picture in the end.

[RPGGuy]

What price do you think is suitable?

I do not have a mortgage to pay off, just my iphone bills lol. The price was based on what else is out there. For example Chopper is $8, which in my opinion less fun and not as much work went into it.

I do plan on updating the game with new content, and maybe give it a new paint job at some point, so hopefully once you buy it and finish the game you'll want to play it all the way through again when updates are made.

*Update* After reading the reviews on the US store all the people that have actually bought the game seem to love it. The only people complaining about the price are ones that haven't played the game.

[crunc]

What price do you think is suitable?

I do not have a mortgage to pay off, just my iphone bills lol. The price was based on what else is out there. For example Chopper is $8, which in my opinion less fun and not as much work went into it.

I do plan on updating the game with new content, and maybe give it a new paint job at some point, so hopefully once you buy it and finish the game you'll want to play it all the way through again when updates are made.

*Update* After reading the reviews on the US store all the people that have actually bought the game seem to love it. The only people complaining about the price are ones that haven't played the game.

I am interested in the game, but I'm hesitant to pay $10 for any game that doesn't offer a free demo. I bought Trism because of all the great reviews for it, yet found that I didn't like the game at all. That experience left a bad taste in my mouth and that game wasn't even $10. So, yeah, this game sounds good, the reviews are pretty good, etc, but I'm not going to buy it without a demo. A demo version will allow us to decide if the game is worth $10, rather then having it be a crap-shoot. I'll gamble on a $1 title that sounds interesting, or even a $5 title on occasion if it sounds right up my alley, but a $10 title has to have a demo.

IMHO, the AppStore should have been designed from the start with demos in mind. For one thing, we shouldn't have two listings for apps with demos - the demo should be available from the (single) app listing, and if you then buy the full version it should replace the demonstration version, all in one step. Oh well.

[mavis]

What price do you think is suitable?

I do not have a mortgage to pay off, just my iphone bills lol. The price was based on what else is out there. For example Chopper is $8, which in my opinion less fun and not as much work went into it.

I do plan on updating the game with new content, and maybe give it a new paint job at some point, so hopefully once you buy it and finish the game you'll want to play it all the way through again when updates are made.

*Update* After reading the reviews on the US store all the people that have actually bought the game seem to love it. The only people complaining about the price are ones that haven't played the game.You seem intent on simply justifying your position, but since you asked a question, I'll answer: I think $5.99 is a fair price. While you're quick to point out the $8 Chopper (and hey, don't stop there - we've got lots of overpriced games to choose from: Tetris, Frogger, PacMan, etc) I would turn around and point out these great games: Dizzy Bee, deBlob, Moto Chaser, ToyBot Diaries, Texas Hold'Em. None of those cost $10, yet they all seem to share fairly high production value.

If you're happy with sales at $9.99, go ahead and keep the price where it is. But (as is obvious by reading this thread) if you want sales to be even more brisk, try dropping to something more reasonable.

[3Dave]

I think that iPhone game prices, as with anything, are based off of supply and demand. If you are making a good number of sales at $9.99 and you're happy where you are, then by all means keep the price point. If you aren't seeing the level of sales you'd hoped for, then drop the price to try and pick things up.

The same thing happens with full console and PC games. They come out at one price point and then slow reduce price to keep sales steady.

I think the only place you'd get into hot water, as we've seen with other devs already, is if you come out at one price point and then jack the price without notice. If you're going to start out at a lower price to boost initial sales, it's best to be as public about what you're doing as you can be.

Don't ask your customers how much we want to pay though, because we'll ALWAYS tell you it would be nice to pay less. ;)

[vandy1997]

I would buy it at $5.99. As I stated before, as people buy the game and enjoy it, you can tell them to buy another of your apps. You have seen tons of games come down from $9.99 to $5.99 because people will get tired of spending $10 for a game that they will play 10 times at best. It's nothing against your game in particular. It's just that there are lots of games to choose from, and you want to stand out by having a great game at a great price. At $5.99, I am sure that these game sites will cover the price drop, and your app will go to top 25. Once it drops from there, people will forget about it! You can even do $5.99 for two or three days and then raise it to $7.99 (just let the people know within the app that this is a limited offer). The $9.99 price point is too steep in my opinion. And that chopper game is a riot - I'm sure that few people bought it! There are tons of crappy $0.99 apps as well, and those will be weeded out as people download them and determine that they are garbage. Sometimes charging more won't yield you the best overall profit.

[mavis]

*Update* After reading the reviews on the US store all the people that have actually bought the game seem to love it. The only people complaining about the price are ones that haven't played the game.Actually, I just checked out the reviews. Your app is sitting at 3 1/2 stars, which is not what I'd call fantastic. The people giving it 1 star? People who haven't even bought it but are complaining about the 80's graphics for $10. ;)

This just proves my point. Start off with a two day launch price of 50% off, LOTS of people (myself included) buy it because you're very clear about it being a launch special and we don't want to miss out on the big discount, and then you have lots of happy customers leaving 5 star reviews in the first day or two because the game is not only fun but cheap. See how it works? Take care of early adopters, shut people like me up, give yourself a solid 5-star review base to offset the inevitable reviews from pre-teens who haven't even bought the game but give it one star because of the price - everyone comes out ahead.

[mavis]

Don't ask your customers how much we want to pay though, because we'll ALWAYS tell you it would be nice to pay less. ;)Haha. Shh!!! ;)

[RPGGuy]

I'll drop the price gradually over time as the demand decreases. It has only been out 1 day so we'll see how the sales go after some of the reviews have been out.

I don't have time to create a demo right now because I'm working on the second game for RPG.

Other than the price, what else would you like to see changed?

[ldkaplan]

I'll drop the price gradually over time as the demand decreases. It has only been out 1 day so we'll see how the sales go after some of the reviews have been out.

I don't have time to create a demo right now because I'm working on the second game for RPG.

Other than the price, what else would you like to see changed?

I see nothing wrong with the price right now. Keep up the good work and tune the folks out that can't get past the price point. If folks can afford a $300 phone and a big whopping monthly bill, not sure what the issue is with paying for a decent game.

I bought the game and will give you input when I get a chance to play it.

Really interested in what you have going for RPG, give us a preview when you are ready!

[dolly]

Before I buy, how exactly are the controls feeling? I mean, for example: if the copter is turning left and I do a really fast twitch to the right (with the accelerometer), is the copter changing it's direction instantly or is there a smooth transition?

When I'm playing Biiball it's hard to keep the ball steady because of the very direct and exact accelerometer response. I think most accelerometer controlled games would benefit from a built in sluggishness or resistance.

[BATTLE BORN]

I haven't tried chopper, but the ultra polished/feature rich asphalt4 isn't helping your cause unfortunately lol.

and to be fair, I just looked at your videos again and the game looks great. you clearly put some hard work into this. having never played the game (or developed one for that matter), for all I know I may find it to be worth even more! but I do know a lower price tag would make it easier for people to swallow. especially compared to the other games/price

with an introductory price of 5.99 (or even more)I would have bought it instantly. but It's hard to pay ten for this when you've got great games like Toy Bot Diaries for 4 bucks, Enigmo and Cromag for six, and many other GREAT values.

just some friendly advice. if you want to make a name for yourself, put out a great game with a great price(IUGO). give people a deal! and not just because they stop buying! like I said, you take care of us, and we'll take care of you in the big picture.
why should we buy your game now when we know that eventually the price will lower? and by that time, better games/values will likely come around, and many of us will have lost interest. (honestly dude, the trends are leaning to lower prices/better value).

I was torn between your game and asphalt, but asphalt is ultimately a more impressive game for the same price. and I'm clearly not the only person who feels that way.

I guess it's up to you man, you've heard the consensus. But I'd hate to see this game get swept under the rug because of the relatively steep price tag. I may break down and buy it, but it won't be today. and with the purchase of asphalt4 (and biiball = 2$, and spacemania= 3?), and this month's releases of spore and star wars, it likely won't be anytime soon.

However I think you could get away with a "back to work" post-labor day sale ;)

[arn]

You seem intent on simply justifying your position, but since you asked a question, I'll answer: I think $5.99 is a fair price.

I don't see how you can judge a "fair price" for something you haven't played.

arn

[mavis]

I don't see how you can judge a "fair price" for something you haven't played.

arn
Are you being sarcastic, or are you serious? I'm assuming the latter, but I apologize if you're actually just being funny and I've completely missed the joke. ;)

My opinion about "fair price" is based on a number of things: gameplay videos, screenshots, and $250 worth of experience with dozens of other apps priced from $0.99 to $23.99. And you know, I posted a question in the review post asking blakespot if he thought it was worth $9.99 but never saw a reply. So all I really have to go on are the things I've just listed.

[tosui]

Hi RPGGuy,

I've been playing your game a lot since I grabbed it yesterday. For anyone who's interested, I think it's great! The accelerometer controls are absolutely the best that I've experienced yet, the story is fun, the sounds really add to the old-school feel of the game.

For anyone who's questioning the money issue, let me say that I have not yet found a game that I think is worth $10. (Fyi - I've been eying Galcon, Asphalt 4, and a couple of others, but I haven't been convinced.) Blue Skies is the first $10 game I've bought, and I do not regret it at all :D

My one request is that you make the "target" cross more visible. Mostly I say this because I'm colour blind, and the cross is often very hard to discern against the background. Perhaps if you make it more contrasty - yellow with a blue outline or something other than red or green. Additionally, I don't think it would hurt to make the cross a little bigger/thicker.

Your comments on an update to the texture mapping sounds good. I'm really looking forward to the next update to the game.

Thanks for being such an active and interested developer - I think that's gonna really help your chances at success! Good luck!

[3Dave]

My opinion about "fair price" is based on a number of things: gameplay videos, screenshots, and $250 worth of experience with dozens of other apps priced from $0.99 to $23.99. And you know, I posted a question in the review post asking blakespot if he thought it was worth $9.99 but never saw a reply. So all I really have to go on are the things I've just listed.

You like to mention how much you've spent in the app store in a lot of your posts. ;)

Really though, I tend to agree with your point. I've never driven a station wagon, and yet I know what a fair asking price for one would be, or at least know that $100K is too much money to spend on one!

[mavis]

You like to mention how much you've spent in the app store in a lot of your posts. ;)

Really though, I tend to agree with your point. I've never driven a station wagon, and yet I know what a fair asking price for one would be, or at least know that $100K is too much money to spend on one!
You're right, I mention it often. The reason is, I don't want people to think I'm just being cheap when I whine about overpriced games. I've spent a lot of money on apps and will continue to do so, if I feel they are reasonably priced. ;)

Love the analogy about the station wagon, BTW. I was trying to think of something appropriate but that did the job well. Cheers. :)

[ldkaplan]

I've never driven a station wagon, and yet I know what a fair asking price for one would be, or at least know that $100K is too much money to spend on one!

That's because you've not driven a lambo-wagon.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9513/bpx97l39yx1.jpg

[crunc]

The argument that it's ridiculous that iPhone users with their big monthly bills would have an issue with a $10 game falls apart when you realize that there are a heck of a lot of us iPod Touch users out there who aren't paying ridiculous monthly fees. :) Of course, a lot of those iPhone users with their ridiculous monthly bills are probably so poor now that it's even more of an issue for them. :) But seriously, this argument is bogus to begin with. You could, perhaps, afford this game at $999, but that doesn't mean it's worth that price. Well, I suppose there's 5 people who would think it was worth it, given "I Am Rich" sales figures. ;^)

[vandy1997]

Frogger is now priced at $5.99 from $9.99. I bought this crappy game for $9.99 for nostalgic purposes and played it two or three times. Hopefully developers will learn that they can make a lot more if they price the apps more reasonably. I find that $9.99 is too much to pay for any app that is out there today. If developers drop to $7.99 or to $5.99, they will make more. The problem with having a high price at the outset is that people will start realizing that developers will have to drop the price of the $9.99 overpriced apps and they will wait until that time. So the developers will lose to all of those people who are waiting for the price drop. At the $9.99 price point, developers will also lose money to hackers who hack the game to provide it to others. This is a game, not a utility app. It's a game that I will play 10 times at most; and it's a game that I cannot sell or transfer to anybody else!! Additionally, there are tons of great games for free or for $0.99. A great game priced at $5.99 is still demanding $5 more for the developer's hard work. That price is justifiable to me. A premium of $9 is too much for me. There are way too many games coming out for me to be worried about the price of one game. As I said before, I will purchase it once I see an announcement that the price has dropped to $5.99. It's not because I'm cheap, because I have spent quite a bit on apps, but I am now purchasing only what I deem to be fairly priced. No more purchases of Frogger or Pacman at $9.99 for me.

With respect to arn's comment, I don't believe that any game app is worth $9.99, regardless of the fact that I have played it or not. And "fair price" is subjective; I respect arn as one of the creators of this site, but who is he to judge what somebody else deems to be a "fair price"? Fairness is relative. A question was asked, and a response was provided. To me, utility apps are worth much more than game apps because I use them to be more productive or they save me time and money. A game will never do that.

I'm not trying to be controversial here. I respect this developer and all developers, and I want them to succeed. The problem that I'm seeing with the App Store is that developers are seeing dollar signs because they are reading about people who are making $2,000 per day on apps, and now everybody wants to be a millionair in two years. The $2,000 per day will dwindle over time, and those who charge high prices will suffer because people will not purchase those apps. Those who get burned on purchasing apps at a high price will wait for a drop in price, and that drop will happen.

Edit: And I wouldn't purchase that Lambo wagon for $10. Maybe I would if I could purchase it and sell it immediately for a profit.

[PHDGaming]

I'm not trying to be controversial here. I respect this developer and all developers, and I want them to succeed. The problem that I'm seeing with the App Store is that developers are seeing dollar signs because they are reading about people who are making $2,000 per day on apps, and now everybody wants to be a millionair in two years. The $2,000 per day will dwindle over time, and those who charge high prices will suffer because people will not purchase those apps. Those who get burned on purchasing apps at a high price will wait for a drop in price, and that drop will happen.

Only a few of the 650 games available make that much. My application, "Alien Invasion", has ranged from 39-80 in the list of top 100 paid games since its release 3 weeks ago (currently 46th), with a high position of 86th a few days ago for all paid applications (game or not). My statistics show 60-222 downloads a day despite its relatively generous position.

Hence..... the $2,000/day number is quite inflated as maybe only ~30 games make anything close to that. Heck - Mote-M and Radius are both better than my game at the same price ($0.99) but must be getting less than $70 a day (of course, I do think my game is definitely good and worth a try, but I am honest :p).

[RPGGuy]

I've reduced the price to $5.99 for Blue Skies. Don't know when it will be updated in the store...

I've also spent the night making new graphics for the terrain and doubled the texture size so it looking crisper :) Thanks for the feedback.

[MattB]

I'm not going to argue price because it's too subjective to really count much. My financial situation may or may not be similar to anyone else's.

However, one way I look at it is even if a game isn't worth $9.99, it is worth that little extra just to support the developers we like and want to reward. There's been a few $9.99 games I regretted purchasing, but the ones I am glad I did (Blue Skies, Asphalt 4, Galcon, for example) are ones that I'm more than happy to reward and support the developers for a job well-done and to encourage them to continue making fun games.

[3Dave]

However, one way I look at it is even if a game isn't worth $9.99, it is worth that little extra just to support the developers we like and want to reward. There's been a few $9.99 games I regretted purchasing, but the ones I am glad I did (Blue Skies, Asphalt 4, Galcon, for example) are ones that I'm more than happy to reward and support the developers for a job well-done and to encourage them to continue making fun games.

This is something I agree with 100%, Matt. I would much rather support an independent Dev who obviously worked their tail off to create a solid game, instead of a large Dev who ported an old game and tried to cash in on the iPhone craze.

[vandy1997]

@PHDGaming - I know that most apps are not making $2,000 per day. I am just saying that some devs may erroneously believe that they need to charge more in order to make big bucks. And that is not the case for most apps. Sometimes you end up making a lot more by charging less. By the way, I purchased Alien Invasion, and I enjoy it. :)

@MattB - I agree with you that we should support independent developers, and I will definitely purchase RPGGuy's app at $5.99. I just don't want to go broke by purchasing every independent developer's app - you know what I mean. I honestly think that RPGGuy will make a lot more with this app at $5.99.

@RPGGuy - I will be purchasing your app at $5.99. I wasn't trying to be a pain. I was being honest. And Konami and those big companies will learn their lesson when their overpriced games are making much less than their potential. I assume that arn, MattB and others will put in an excellent word on the price drop, as they should, and I hope to see your app at the top of the list! I look forward to your future apps!

[PHDGaming]

I've reduced the price to $5.99 for Blue Skies. Don't know when it will be updated in the store...

I've also spent the night making new graphics for the terrain and doubled the texture size so it looking crisper :) Thanks for the feedback.

Sweet. I'll purchase it once the price update shows up and leave feedback on iTunes.

[mavis]

I've reduced the price to $5.99 for Blue Skies. Don't know when it will be updated in the store...

I've also spent the night making new graphics for the terrain and doubled the texture size so it looking crisper :) Thanks for the feedback.Now see, I respect that a lot. Not only are you a talented developer but you've shown now that you're willing to listen to the community and make adjustments to your apps as necessary - very cool. I will be buying this as soon as the price change hits, and will leave feedback for it, as well.

THANK YOU. :)

[whooley]

That's because you've not driven a lambo-wagon.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9513/bpx97l39yx1.jpg

I'd be happy with one of these!

http://davidextreme.d.a.pic.centerblog.net/4by2ogjs.jpg :D

[ldkaplan]

I want a refund! J/K :-)

[Nursedad]

Glad to see active participation from the developer on this one. I purchased the game at the $9.99 price and am happy with what I've gotten for my money (won't hold the $4 price drop against you).

Since you asked, I do have a few suggestions for future development of this game:

- One user already mentioned this, but appreciate if the targeting cursor was changed. Have a very difficult time seeing it most of the time. Perhaps some type of audio and/or visual (e.g. flashing cursor) when it's appropriately targeted on it's intended target (e.g. tank / mine / etc...).

- The controls are pretty good, but would like to be able to side-slip the helicopter. Sure would help in the avoidance of enemy attacks and is a bit more realistic to the actual flight dynamics of a helicopter.

- A way to pause and/or modify settings during gameplay. The only option now is either to quit the game via the home button or to abort the mission.

- I think the calibration option may be a little off. Tried to calibrate it from a lying (on my back) position last night and it ended up reversing the controls (e.g. had to tilt the phone backwards to move forwards).

Appreciate your willingness to listen to the suggestions of your customers. An attentive ear certainly makes me fill even better about my investment in your game.

- - Jeff

[crunc]

Just want to say thanks for lowering the price, and I'll be another one purchasing it when the price change shows up. Actually I just checked and the price *does* show up if you look at the listing within the Games->Action category, however, when you click on the game to see the details and to purchase, it is still showing as $9.99. Presumably this will be fixed soon. I'll check again later.

[RPGGuy]

It's an itunes thing. Hopefully it will be updated soon. Just be patient :D

[crunc]

FYI, it is now finally showing as $5.99, at least in the AppStore version of the store. I just purchased it and am downloading as I type. I won't get a chance to actually try it out, though (at least not for real), until later tonight. I can't wait to see the update with improved textures and such.... I'll report back with my thoughts on the game once I've gotten some substantial play in.

[lw1234]

This my first post, but I felt I needed to register in order to thank RPGguy for listening to user feedback! It makes the future of iPhone gaming exciting because it allows smaller developers to get in touch with the people playing their games and make improvements based on their suggestions, rather than making them based on the arbitrary judgment of a larger review site. For console gaming, a gamer's only recourse is to go complain on the Kotaku comments or the RottenTomatoes game forums. Here, the developer is actually posting replies to direct user feedback!

Of course, it's important not to use this to bully developers into doing something unfair, but when their are logical suggestions made, it's awesome that someone listens.

Blue Skies is downloading as we speak. I bought it as soon as I found out it was lowered to 5.99, and I'm sure most (but not all, because there are still a lot of idiots who think .99 is too much to pay for a game) of the complaints about the price tag should slowly give way to a higher star rating. :)

[RPGGuy]

I've posted some screenshots of Blue Skies v1.1. Enjoy the old 80's graphics while you still can ;)

http://www.rockingpocketgames.com/BlueSkies.htm

[Nursedad]

Man...awesome! Can't wait for this update to post. See that targeting cursor is MUCH more visible now.

Great job!

- - Jeff

[BATTLE BORN]

wow you've really been putting in some work! though I don't mind the 80's style graphics lol. reminds me of zelda SNES.
true to my word, I'm now a proud owner of your game!
I'm still at work but I'll try to sqeeze in some gameplay at lunch ;)
I haven't rated any apps in the store yet, but I'd be happy to post one for you.
you took care of us, so It's only fair that I return the favor!

[tosui]

Honestly, even having purschased Blue Skies at $10, your devotion to people's feedback (and I'm not just talking about the $$ posts) makes me happy to have given you the extra bucks.

And while the new graphics look great, I think I might just miss the old-school look! But I'll get over it :)

[crunc]

I have some comments now that I've played the game a bit. It's far from final opinion as I've only played up through level 10. I hope you are up for some constructive criticism. :)

First, let me say that the controls are great. I really don't think there is anything to improve there. The calibration is easy and works well. Also, thank you, thank you, thank you for including volume controls and separate sound effects and music volume. The game plays beautifully. I think you've done a bang-up job on the control system, sound effects and music.

I don't mind the 80's looking graphics. What is a problem, though, is how similar everything looks. All the levels look the same. I think there needs to be more variety in terrain, including colors, and types objects on the ground.

Next a bug. The game does not pause if you turn off your iPod touch! The sound effect of the helicopter keeps going and going and the music continues to play for a few seconds and then cuts out, though the helicopter blades keep whop, whop, whopping forever. More importantly, the game still really does seem to be running because I left it in this state for several minutes and at one point heard an explosion. I guess I'd flown into something. Then when I turned my iPod back on I crashed due to lack of fuel.

There needs to be a way to get back to the menu. Maybe there is a way and I don't know it? For example, in order to change the volume or to re-calibrate. You might have to re-calibrate if, for example, you've been playing standing up waiting for a train to arrive (yes, that's what I was doing, and when the train arrived is when I discovered the above noted issue), then sit down in the train and find that a different angle is more comfortable. Currently the only way to do this is to quit the game, relaunch it and then you have to start the level over again because....

... the game doesn't save your state when you quit. I really wish it did. Especially on some of the more, lets say, "lengthy" levels, it's pretty annoying to start over just because you had to quit the game for a minute.

The game takes too long to get going. There is essentially no challenge at all up to level 10, and level 8 (I think that's the one - the one that is just a lot of mines) should not exist. There was already a lesson about mines, and that lesson level was more fun since it wasn't just mines, and there weren't such a ridiculous number of them. I haven't started level 11 yet. I can only presume that the game gets harder at some point, hopefully soon. Note too that I am not a very skilled gamer at all. I can only imagine what a hardcore player would think of the difficulty level.

The airplanes just go in straight lines. Worse, they keep going off the map. I kept getting into a rut where I'd chase down a plane only for it to prove to be too far off the map, then chase all the way to the other side of the map another (or perhaps the same plane - I'm not sure) and it would be off the map, etc. This rut problem would be eliminated, though, if...

... there were a radar. I really wish this game had a radar instead of just those arrows. Chasing arrows isn't that fun. Seeing all nearby enemies on a radar would be a lot more fun, and also avoid some unnecessary flying around.

Well, I hope you don't take all this badly, and I'm certainly not stopping playing the game as it is entertaining regardless. I guess I'm just the critical sort. :) Hopefully this proves helpful.

[ReformatPlanet]

I was on the fence about this because of the price point. I just picked it up now that you dropped it down, and i hate to be that way since in the long run 4$ does not make a huge difference. There is just something strangely psychologically unappealing about making a 10$ commitment for a cell phone game. I still haven't picked up Asphalt 4, and everyone says that great.

One example that makes it pretty clear for me is that Bionic Commando: Rearmed, a recent Xbox 360 game available to download for that platform only cost 10$, and it's one of the best games i've played all year. I feel like my Xbox and my cell phone are a world apart.

5.99 is really a much more comfortable price for an iphone title.

[RPGGuy]

crunc: If you want to save your game, land on a pad and choose abort mission. It will save how many enemies you have left.

The next time you play it will start the level again with that many enemies but everything will be in different positions.

[vandy1997]

I purchased your game last night and will test it out today. I will definitely leave feedback in iTunes!

[dudehuge]

Just be happy he's even asking the community for a price suggestion, he doesn't need to do that at all. Remember he quit his job to do this full-time.

[Oliver]

Ok, I like this game. As many others I'd like to have a better seeable targeting cursor and I'd also like to have the triangles blink when the enemy or landing platform is near me.

BUT, Blue Skies is the only app, where I can do this reproducable:

1. Restore and resync your iPhone
2. Start the app
3. Play one level, than quit the app to the home screen
4. Reboot your iPhone
5. All media is gone, no 3rd party app runs, welcome (again) to the restore hell

Of course I know, that there are many people on the Apple support forums, who have the same problem And I had it before with different apps like Cannon Challenge and Asphalt 4. And I blamed it to the f*cking buggy firmware. But in this time I can definitely reproduce it with Blue Skies EVERY SINGE TIME and I'm really pissed, that my iPhone lived only 5 minutes and now has to go into restore mode, which will again take about 4 hours (Blue Skies bricked it yesterday as well).

So, does any one has this problem as well?

[mavis]

Umm, no - works fine here (knock on wood) ...

[lw1234]

crunc: If you want to save your game, land on a pad and choose abort mission. It will save how many enemies you have left.

The next time you play it will start the level again with that many enemies but everything will be in different positions.

Thanks for a great game, RPGguy. Can I make a suggestion? With regards to weapons upgrades, it appears that they are only slightly different in appearance and do slightly more damage. Is there any way to make then visually different so there is a satisfaction to levelling up? Maybe some homing missiles or machine guns so you really get a sense of becoming more powerful? The other enemies can shoot in all directions and it would be cool to feel like a badass with super powerful weapons. Thanks!

[dudehuge]

Ok, I like this game. As many others I'd like to have a better seeable targeting cursor and I'd also like to have the triangles blink when the enemy or landing platform is near me.

BUT, Blue Skies is the only app, where I can do this reproducable:

1. Restore and resync your iPhone
2. Start the app
3. Play one level, than quit the app to the home screen
4. Reboot your iPhone
5. All media is gone, no 3rd party app runs, welcome (again) to the restore hell

Of course I know, that there are many people on the Apple support forums, who have the same problem And I had it before with different apps like Cannon Challenge and Asphalt 4. And I blamed it to the f*cking buggy firmware. But in this time I can definitely reproduce it with Blue Skies EVERY SINGE TIME and I'm really pissed, that my iPhone lived only 5 minutes and now has to go into restore mode, which will again take about 4 hours (Blue Skies bricked it yesterday as well).

So, does any one has this problem as well?
Nope no problem here; but there are too many of this apps bricking iPhones and iTouches. I don't know let's wait for the dev's reply. Good for you to write a detailed step by step process unlike all the other morons that just shouts "OMG YOU BRICKED MY IPHONE 💩💩💩💩 YOU."

[RPGGuy]

I've had this happen to me once so far and don't know what caused it. Had to restore but everything has been fine since. When mine needed a restore I hadn't even touched it. It was turned off overnight.

As you can imagine I've run Blue Skies hundreds of times during development.
The game only writes 1 small file for the save game, nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't know how it could be causing a problem. It is probably something to do with iTunes or the firmware itself.

[Oliver]

I'll hope for 2.1 on Tuesday...

[johnbowers]

The game only writes 1 small file for the save game, nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't know how it could be causing a problem.

Its the firmware. StarSmasher doesn't write ANY files, it just uses NSUserDefaults, and also does nothing out of the ordinary. I've had a few users have similar problems.

@Oliver

I would suggest deleting the app from your phone, your itunes, wherever you've got it. Then re-download it using iTunes on your computer and install it over USB. For my users this has fixed the problems every time. The problem is that the app installer seems to randomly corrupt apps as it is installing them. My guess is that restoring your phone is just restoring the already corrupted install--you need to get rid of it completely and start over. Also, the reason I say use your computer for the install is that iTunes on the comp seems to have fewer corruption issues than the App store on the phone.

Good luck.

Some reading:

http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/07/16/iphone-application-crashes-preventing-and-fixing/

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/19/steve_jobs_vows_iphone_app_crash_fix_for_september .html

Oh, and BTW: this is as frustrating for devs as it is for users.

[Oliver]

For me this would mean to reinstall Asphalt and Blue Skies. So far, the other apps work fine and Cannon Challenge has been reinstalled lately. I'd loose all game data - I'd cry if this would be Monkeyball ;).

Do you feel that this is more a problem of the installing process? I.e. do we have to redownload the stuff or is it the magic which happens during the installation? I also think, that i happens on bigger apps more than on smaller apps.

In both cases, this of course means that every update could reintroduce this bug again.

I download all apps using iTunes. Prior, I had to restore my phone twice a week because of the White boot logo of death :(.

I know that it's hard to your developers as well. As far as I can see it on the comments in the German App Store, many people blame it not on Apple, but on the 3rd party devs :(.


I really hope that these three bugs will be gone tomorrow:
- Missing music and crashing 3rd-party-apps after a few seconds
- White boot logo of death after installating/updating
- Updates remove app data

[crunc]

I actually just went through the restore hell for the 5th time. No, actually I didn't. I was installing an app and my iPod touch crashed (for the 5th time) and I got the endless apple logo, never booting up. I decided finally to take the thing to the Apple Store instead of doing a restore. They told me that the problem is known and that they believe it is due to some apps not following the guidelines and not "sandboxing" themselves. Then they do something they shouldn't and it causes problems for other apps, sometimes even crashing the iPod/iPhone and requiring a restore. The next firmware update will fix the problem because it will force all apps into a sandbox. He didn't have an ETA, but hoped it would be this week (presumably tomorrow?)

First, I don't know if this guy really knows what he's talking about or not, but it is pretty clear that memory protection has gone out the window with the iPhone/iPod touch. An application shouldn't be able to crash the system nor affect other apps, at least not easily. So, I'm hoping that the firmware update will fix it. The big question is why didn't they do it this way from the beginning? What in the world were they thinking/smoking?

Back on topic, level 11 in this game was much better than the previous 10. I do think you should cut out about half of those first 10 levels so that the game gets fun more quickly. I haven't done any more than that because of the above mentioned situation.

Regarding "pausing" the game by landing, that isn't practical when my train arrives and I need to stop right then, or someone starts to talk to me and I don't want to seem like a jerk, etc, etc. Hopefully you can add in a pause control, perhaps at the top middle of the screen.

[johnbowers]

For me this would mean to reinstall Asphalt and Blue Skies.

I'm not sure why you would have to reinstall anything else. All you do is hold your finger down over the Blue Skies icon until it jiggles, then tap the (X). That will delete it and only it. Then also delete it from iTunes on your computer. Next go to the App Store in iTunes and re-download it like you are buying it again. The app store should not charge you a second time and will download it to iTunes (you might be able to use Check For Purchases, but I'm not certain). Then reinstall it over USB via iTunes. Again, this does not mean reinstalling Asphalt.

Devs obviously will have bugs in their code that cause crashes, yes. Bugs that appear randomly for just a handful of users often and for no-one else ever probably aren't the devs fault. The systems are pretty homogeneous, meaning that the apps SHOULD behave exactly the same across the board. If you have random crashing issues after 5-10 seconds and no one else does, then something got misconfigured.

One known problem is that the app installer misconfigures the DRM. I'm not sure if this is done when it is downloaded or when it is installed but I know that the fix is to completely delete and reinstall like I mentioned above.

As far as updates removing app data, my guess is that it is a dev problem and not an apple problem. It may be the the devs are using a config file rather than the user defaults to store stuff and it gets rewritten on update.

I know for a fact that some of these issues are Apple's fault. I've been through this with quite a few of my users and the reinstall has cleared up all issues EVERY SINGLE TIME. The game didn't change because I hadn't shipped any updates at the time, the installation did--which is Apple's problem. That's what sux the most: we devs take the heat for Apple rushing their product to market. I would MUCH MUCH MUCH have preferred them to wait a month and work these things out.

[johnbowers]

They told me that the problem is known and that they believe it is due to some apps not following the guidelines and not "sandboxing" themselves. Then they do something they shouldn't and it causes problems for other apps, sometimes even crashing the iPod/iPhone and requiring a restore.

Its cute that Apple is blaming the devs for their own problems. An OS doesn't ask nicely for an app to stay in a sandbox. The whole point of an OS is to MAKE SURE that the app IS sandboxed. To me the statements above are an admission of guilt by the Apple Tech. It's as if someone found a buffer overrun exploit and wrote a virus and Apple said "Oh, but we don't want people to exploit buffer overruns. It's not our problem." Of course it is. They created the sandbox, they are the ones who are supposed to enforce it.

Listen, Java is a language that runs its applets in a sandbox. Here's how it works: someone writes a Java applet. That applet can only play in its sandbox. If an applet were able to start editing the host filesystem we would go complain to Sun for not making their sandbox work. Same thing here.

Okay, that was long winded--sorry.

[tosui]

Are you still thinking about adding rescue missions & picking up crates/people?

It seems like there's a lot of options you can add to the game, many of which would also add to the story. (And a pause button would be good, too - can't always find a landing pad as quickly as you'd like :))

[dudehuge]

I actually just went through the restore hell for the 5th time. No, actually I didn't. I was installing an app and my iPod touch crashed (for the 5th time) and I got the endless apple logo, never booting up. I decided finally to take the thing to the Apple Store instead of doing a restore. They told me that the problem is known and that they believe it is due to some apps not following the guidelines and not "sandboxing" themselves. Then they do something they shouldn't and it causes problems for other apps, sometimes even crashing the iPod/iPhone and requiring a restore. The next firmware update will fix the problem because it will force all apps into a sandbox. He didn't have an ETA, but hoped it would be this week (presumably tomorrow?)

First, I don't know if this guy really knows what he's talking about or not, but it is pretty clear that memory protection has gone out the window with the iPhone/iPod touch. An application shouldn't be able to crash the system nor affect other apps, at least not easily. So, I'm hoping that the firmware update will fix it. The big question is why didn't they do it this way from the beginning? What in the world were they thinking/smoking?

Back on topic, level 11 in this game was much better than the previous 10. I do think you should cut out about half of those first 10 levels so that the game gets fun more quickly. I haven't done any more than that because of the above mentioned situation.

Regarding "pausing" the game by landing, that isn't practical when my train arrives and I need to stop right then, or someone starts to talk to me and I don't want to seem like a jerk, etc, etc. Hopefully you can add in a pause control, perhaps at the top middle of the screen.

Bullshit, none of those idiots at the Apple Store know a single thing about programming. That's just some Apple PR BS.

The SDK is already too restrictive for its own good, heck that's why Tap Tap doesn't allow you to play with the songs from your itunes library because it does not allow the program to analyze the songs in it. It will only allow you to play the songs as background music. Plus 3rd party background processing is also absent.

[different]

Remember, Apple is run by people. People get things wrong, not all of the time but some of the time. You should be grateful that the iPhone is made by Apple and not Microsoft, otherwise we'd still be stuck with a buggy first version of the firmware, with an update to come in three years time.

I believe there's a known bug in the sandboxing code which allows applications to read into other's sandboxes, but not write. This will be fixed in the upcoming 2.1 update.

As for background processing, well to be honest I'd rather have better battery life than that. The battery life is poor as it is because I run all sorts of games and things that eat up resources, having background processes would further strain the battery (even if used carefully).

Background processing doesn't have anything to do with the iTunes library, perhaps that's an arbitrary restriction put in place by Apple. I'd certainly love to see third party integration with the iTunes library, but it's not something I'm desperate for.

[johnbowers]

As for background processing, well to be honest I'd rather have better battery life than that.

Even more importantly, I'm glad processes aren't backgrounding so that I don't run out of RAM. I had problems with an App starting to receive low mem warnings when it was only using about 20 megs. Can you imagine what would happen if every app you home screened out of was actually still running in the background? Having a swap space won't solve it either because the hard-drive on the device is SLOW compared to a computer's (that is bitter experience talking.)

[dudehuge]

Remember, Apple is run by people. People get things wrong, not all of the time but some of the time. You should be grateful that the iPhone is made by Apple and not Microsoft, otherwise we'd still be stuck with a buggy first version of the firmware, with an update to come in three years time.

I believe there's a known bug in the sandboxing code which allows applications to read into other's sandboxes, but not write. This will be fixed in the upcoming 2.1 update.

As for background processing, well to be honest I'd rather have better battery life than that. The battery life is poor as it is because I run all sorts of games and things that eat up resources, having background processes would further strain the battery (even if used carefully).

Background processing doesn't have anything to do with the iTunes library, perhaps that's an arbitrary restriction put in place by Apple. I'd certainly love to see third party integration with the iTunes library, but it's not something I'm desperate for.

You interpreted it wrong, I know that BG processing is not the cause, it's a mandatory restriction by Apple. I edited my post to avoid confusion.

The battery is not a software issue it's hardware so you can't even compare the two.

You'll change your mind on BG processing. For example, when more apps with online multiplayer comes, or even MMOs. Imagine, you're just one kill away for winning a match then suddenly your friend calls, then its game over. And no, having the app wait for you to comeback at a pre-determined amount of time is not the solution.

[dudehuge]

Even more importantly, I'm glad processes aren't backgrounding so that I don't run out of RAM. I had problems with an App starting to receive low mem warnings when it was only using about 20 megs. Can you imagine what would happen if every app you home screened out of was actually still running in the background? Having a swap space won't solve it either because the hard-drive on the device is SLOW compared to a computer's (that is bitter experience talking.)

First is you don't have an idea how Background Processing works, all first party apple apps can run and is running on the background, only 3rd party apps are not allowed.

One obvious benefit is that when someone calls you, the game you're currently playing right now won't just suddenly quit and you don't have to pray that the developer included an auto-save feature. This will benefit more apps that has online functions like messengers and online games. Then after making the call you just switch to the app right away. It will not stay in your memory hogging all the resources because when you're done, you'll just quit the damn thing.

[johnbowers]

First is you don't have an idea how Background Processing works, all first party apple apps can run and is running on the background, only 3rd party apps are not allowed.

I am fully aware that first party apps can run in the background. I'm also well versed in how it works--I write multithreaded programs for a living. The problem is that the iPhone has no swap space. I have no idea why, but until they give it some swap space they aren't going to allow 3rd party apps to run in the background. My guess is that they don't want to explain to novice users why their 8 gig iphone needs a half gig of swap space and is all of a sudden a 7.5 gig iPhone, but who knows.

One obvious benefit is that when someone calls you, the game you're currently playing right now won't just suddenly quit and you don't have to pray that the developer included an auto-save feature. This will benefit more apps that has online functions like messengers and online games. Then after making the call you just switch to the app right away. It will not stay in your memory hogging all the resources because when you're done, you'll just quit the damn thing.

Yeah, I completely understand why we want apps to background. I just think that there are more technical challenges to it than you do. Without swap space, 128 megs becomes a pretty small amount of RAM--especially running a stripped down version of OS X. So without swap space, let's say that the OS takes 28 megs of RAM and you have a bunch of apps that load about 10. If you were to load 10 of those apps and instead of closing them you "minimize" them (i.e. sending them to the background) then the next app you load will crash itself and/or the device.

Now maybe the fix is this: don't allow 3rd party apps to send themselves to the background. Only send a 3rd party app to the background if it is interrupted by a phone call, and resume it after the call ends. This might work well--maybe it will be in the next firmware update.

[Oliver]

I removed Blue Skies and Asphalt 4 (it triggered the error once before restore) , redownloaded and reinstalled through iTunes. Now half of my apps quit after launch. I won't reboot because than all apps would be gone and my music and I have no time to restore now. I'll wait 12 hours and see, what Apple tell us. Hopefully something good.

Background processes: I really wish, there will be a way for background processes. Or a notification system inside the OS, where apps can register for a song change or a specific location change. It would be so great to have the Mobile Scrobbler back again or to have OmniFocus show me what to do while walking down the street and arriving at the store automatically. For this you don't need background processes, just a nice notification process which can start the main app or a little process of it.

[dudehuge]

I removed Blue Skies and Asphalt 4 (it triggered the error once before restore) , redownloaded and reinstalled through iTunes. Now half of my apps quit after launch. I won't reboot because than all apps would be gone and my music and I have no time to restore now. I'll wait 12 hours and see, what Apple tell us. Hopefully something good.

Background processes: I really wish, there will be a way for background processes. Or a notification system inside the OS, where apps can register for a song change or a specific location change. It would be so great to have the Mobile Scrobbler back again or to have OmniFocus show me what to do while walking down the street and arriving at the store automatically. For this you don't need background processes, just a nice notification process which can start the main app or a little process of it.

Damn so it did it again. I think the problem is with Apple since the devs that replied here are pretty sure that they didn't do anything wrong with the code.

[dudehuge]

From the looks of things it really is Apple's problem, so go easy on the devs :P

"Here's the explanation: When the 3rd party application state changes, Springboard "regenerates the application map" which you can see clearly if you watch the system log with the iPhone Configuration Utility.

This can take some time. The more and/or bigger applications you have installed, the longer this takes. This regeneration process happens ANY time a change to installed applications occurs.

Here's the problem - Springboard is watched by a watchdog process which is handled by configd. The location of the watchdog and it's configuration files is /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/mobilewatchdog.bundle

The watchdog constantly monitors Springboard, and if it doesn't respond at least once every 2 minutes, it is killed and forcibly restarted. If this happens approximately 4 times, the watchdog will attempt to reboot the device, but it usually just freezes the system with the half brightness apple logo.

The problem occurs when the number and/or size of applications installed causes a regeneration of the application map to take longer than 2 minutes - it becomes impossible for Sprinboard to complete the task before it is forcibly killed by the watchdog. It will try again the next time and run out of time and be killed again. Hence stuck at the boot screen until doing a restore.

It is unbelievable that Apple allowed this design flaw, yes design flaw, not bug go out into the wild and it still hasn't fixed it in 2.0.1. Clearly the watchdog arrangement was put in place before 3rd party application support, and none of the programmers considered the possibility of Springboard taking more than 2 minutes to regenerate the application map."

Full discussion on the link below.

http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94707

[Oliver]

Well, this is a different bug. I ran into this for many times and then stopped updating or installing apps directly on the iPhone but only use iTunes for this. After this, I'm only bugged with the crashing/missing-media thing :).

8 hours left :). I'll wait for iTunes 8 and 2.1 and then resync. But as I know how Apple "solves" problems it's to us to delete and reinstall all apps because iPhone OS won't "autoheal" the broken apps. We will loose all stored data, but after this, everything will be fine. I'll hate Apple for this, once again.

[crunc]

I woke this morning to find my (replacement, as of Saturday) iPod Touch crashed, now the 6th time it's happened to me, first time on this iPod Touch. This time was a bit different because it would seem to related to the fact that my little iMac G4 was running out of disk space. There was a warning dialog that I was too low on space and needed to delete files. Behind that was iTunes, saying it was installing LED Football. My iPod Touch was completely frozen. The display was on, but I couldn't slide the slider to cancel the sync. I was able to cancel the sync in iTunes, but that didn't change the iPod Touch's state. I was forced to force a reboot, which of course left me with an endless Apple logo. Now, I realize that running out of disk space is bad, but no matter what happens during an *application* install, it should not result in the iPod Touch no longer being able to boot up. There is something seriously fubar'd with the install process, or perhaps more likely, with the design of the entire system. Once I'm done with this 6th damnable restore, I'm going to try very, very hard to resist installing any more applications until 2.1, and even then I'm going to be wary. As far as I'm concerned, 2.0 is an utter disaster and I don't have that much hope that 2.1 is really going to be the panacea we all hope it will be. Maybe once they get to 3.0 and they've charged us iPod Touch users about $200 for the upgrades along the way, allowing them to hire some programmers that actually know what the hell they are doing.

[RPGGuy]

I've added new screenshots and a couple of videos from version 2.0 of Blue Skies.

http://www.rockingpocketgames.com/BlueSkies.htm

I've also submitted version 2 to the app store along with a lite version that lets you play the first 7 levels for free. These will both be available once Apple approves them!

[crunc]

It looks great, especially, "Autosave level progress when quitting"! Thanks! I can't wait for the update to show up....

[BATTLE BORN]

looks great dude! I'm really looking forward to a little strafing action ;)
you've clearly got a knack for game making!

[Nursedad]

Incredible upgrades. Appreciate you listening to your customers!!

Many thanks!

- - Jeff

[Oliver]

All of my problems are gone with the 2.1 update.

[crunc]

Ditto for me. I'm trying to pretend that 2.0.x never existed and that 2.1 is the real 2.0. :) Now, we just need that Blue Skies update to finally appear on the app store!

[lw1234]

I'm getting a little impatient waiting for this update. This isn't anything against you, RPGguy, but you said you submitted the update to apple over a WEEK ago. I've seen updates come and go like crazy, and I've never waited a week between when a developer says he's submitted an update and when it appears. Usually it's about a day at most. Do you have any info as to what is going on?

[RPGGuy]

It was submitted 4 days before 2.1 came out. I discovered the loud sound bug was happening so I fixed it and resubmitted. That was done around the 13th so it has been 4 days. When I originally submitted Blue Skies it took a week to get approved. It's out of my hands now. Waiting for Apple to do whatever it is they do :) Developers are in the dark about what the delay is, and what their process is for reviewing apps. I'm working on iFishing in the meantime.

I also noticed that the first version of Blue Skies had the wrong version number set in the files (1.6 instead of 1.0). So I had to increase it to 2.0 so the store would recognize it as an update. Any features I mentioned as 1.1 earlier is what will be in the update. Sorry no strafing yet. Haven't decided how to control that. Suggestions?

[Oliver]

Well, the review process seems to be at 9 days currently, from 3 days at the App Store start. That's what I see regarding the update announcements and the publishing of the updates from various apps. Apple should really show the developers where their updates are and how long it will take. It's not good when the developer is surprised to see the app being online for a day without noticing :).

I hope that the graphics will be more smooth in 2.0 than now. Scrolling/Movement does not feel as smooth as it was in Zone 66 in the 90s, which takes the fun out of the game.

[tosui]

I'm loving Blue Skies; it's one of my most-played games! But I find that I keep missing the tapping zones because my thumbs just naturally fall more towards the middle of the screen, not the bottom. Would it be possible to expand the tapping zones to include areas a little higher up?

Looking forward to the updates! Great game!

[twista31]

I have to say, this game is really spot on and fun to play! The controls are really good. Kudos.

[tosui]

I have to say, this game is really spot on and fun to play! The controls are really good. Kudos.

Welcome to TA! Now that you're here, prepare to find lots more great games and spend all your $$ :D

Enjoy the game!

[skathir]

Since updating to v3.3, I am getting a popup message in the game "You are playing an illegal copy". My iphone is not jailbroken and I purchased this game, so im not sure why this is occurring. Has anyone else had this issue?
I thought about deleting and purchasing again but I dont want to lose my progress.

[VeganTnT]

Since updating to v3.3, I am getting a popup message in the game "You are playing an illegal copy". My iphone is not jailbroken and I purchased this game, so im not sure why this is occurring. Has anyone else had this issue?
I thought about deleting and purchasing again but I dont want to lose my progress.

Was your iphone EVER jailbroken to allow cracked games? If so there are few files left behind.

The dev has some pretty aggressive protection on the game which is why I never bought it =/

[skathir]

No I have never jailbroken my phone. Was this protection in earlier versions of the game too? I never had this problem until the 3.3 update which I got down today.

[don_k]

No I have never jailbroken my phone. Was this protection in earlier versions of the game too? I never had this problem until the 3.3 update which I got down today.

Wow.. In that case I'd better be careful. I've never jailbroken my iPhone too but I'm afraid the same problem might occur. We should boycott devs like this. I mean, we paid and got treated like a thief??

The dev has some pretty aggressive protection on the game which is why I never bought it =/

So how did you know it has some aggressive protection? Did you play the cracked version and the message pops up?

[VeganTnT]

So how did you know it has some aggressive protection? Did you play the cracked version and the message pops up?

No, my friend bought it when it was at 99 cents. I read in a thread here about a new update that added weather effects and some other things. So I asked if I could try it out. He loaded it to his iphone but couldn't get it to work. It was because he had a jailbroken iphone. Checked the appstore and there were a lot of reviews about it not working. The description for the game also says not to play on a jailbroken device.

So I just forgot about the game because I love having a jailbroken device (SBSettings, Backgrounder, and Status Notifier FTW) so I won't bother buying the game. If every update has the potential to not work for me then it's money down the drain.

This has NOTHING to do with the quality of the game. I understand and respect the devs choice to add copy protection of any kind to their game. I just don't want to support a game/dev that punishes me for jailbreaking my device.

[don_k]

@VegantTNT:

I see. It's interesting to know that bigger name companies don't even bother with this method. Maybe the reason is pretty clear: it punishes everyone who jailbreaks their iDevices, not just those who actually use the cracked version.

It's pretty dumb I'd say.

[VeganTnT]

@VegantTNT:

I see. It's interesting to know that bigger name companies don't even bother with this method. Maybe the reason is pretty clear: it punishes everyone who jailbreaks their iDevices, not just those who actually use the cracked version.

It's pretty dumb I'd say.

I think Secret Exit had the right approach with Zen Bound. I read an article that said they did something so that it detects if you have a cracked version of the game. Then it boots you out of the game and opens safari after you play for a while and asks you to purchase a copy if you like it. The writer said that it was still the full version of the game but that the booting would annoy pirates.

Plus you get to download the soundtrack for free when you get the game. So there is plenty of incentive for them to buy the legit version

[don_k]

I think Secret Exit had the right approach with Zen Bound. I read an article that said they did something so that it detects if you have a cracked version of the game. Then it boots you out of the game and opens safari after you play for a while and asks you to purchase a copy if you like it. The writer said that it was still the full version of the game but that the booting would annoy pirates.

Plus you get to download the soundtrack for free when you get the game. So there is plenty of incentive for them to buy the legit version

Wow I didn't know it was technically possible! It's so amazing!! While DS and PSP suffer from piracy and there's little to nothing they can do about it, the iDevices actually has some ways around it? wow!

I'm just wondering, why don't big companies implement this anti-piracy technology then? Say, Sega, Gameloft, Namco, Capcom, EA, etc. Or are they playing the 'we hate piracy but it boosts popularity' again?

[VeganTnT]

Wow I didn't know it was technically possible! It's so amazing!! While DS and PSP suffer from piracy and there's little to nothing they can do about it, the iDevices actually has some ways around it? wow!

I'm just wondering, why don't big companies implement this anti-piracy technology then? Say, Sega, Gameloft, Namco, Capcom, EA, etc. Or are they playing the 'we hate piracy but it boosts popularity' again?

I think they don't care. They sell copies based on brand recognition and through all their advertising. Pirates hurt their sales but in the end those big game studios have budgets. Their games can sit in the appstore for a while and eventually make that money back.

Indie devs are the ones that have to be aggressive about this. They have fewer games out and getting pirated really hurts them financially. Take Flu Fighters for an example. It's the devs first iphone game and it's cracked within the first hour of it being on the appstore. That huge loss in revenue forces devs into a hard place where updates are harder to justify for a game that has been cracked and sometimes stops them from starting work on other projects.

That's why I respect a dev for adding protection to their games. Of course, had I bought the game and this happened... I'd be less respectful and a whole lot of angry ;)

[gnadenlos]

I'm just wondering, why don't big companies implement this anti-piracy technology then?
Because it doesn't work. It's fairly easy to remove most of those protections.

A general protection against all jailbroken devices is even more stupid, because you don't get any new customers that way. I don't think anyone will give up his Jailbreak for a single game. So you lose all honest users with jailbroken devices without generating any new sales, because the pirates also won't give up the jailbreak.

[cloudlesssky22]

Since updating to v3.3, I am getting a popup message in the game "You are playing an illegal copy". My iphone is not jailbroken and I purchased this game, so im not sure why this is occurring. Has anyone else had this issue?
I thought about deleting and purchasing again but I dont want to lose my progress.

I have the exact same issue. I have a 2nd Gen iPod Touch (never jailbroken) and I have the same message after I downloaded the v3.3 update. The message wouldn't let me play the game even though I paid for the game. Therefore, as a last resort, I deleted the app from my iPod Touch (since I downloaded the update directly on my iPod Touch and not through iTunes on my PC) and re-synched the v3.2 of the game from my PC. Then, I lost all my progress on the game. I was pretty upset about it since I spent quite some time on the game to get to level 22.

I sent an email to the developer letting them know about the issue but have not yet heard from them.

[writingsama]

I think the real issue is that it really isn't a closed system, per se.

For DD to work well, and avoid the specter of piracy as much as possible (not eliminate it, as that is near impossible, but curtail it as much as feasible), the hardware would have to be able to download on its own (as it does now), but NOT be able to be connected to a PC/Mac and download data off of those pieces of hardware.

In other words, there'd have to be either no input ports at all on the handheld hardware allowing for data transfer to and from a piece of "open" hardware (like a PC or Mac, where the user can create finals and download programs outside of the scope of the OEM), or, if data transfer from or to another piece of hardware is necessary, it'd have to be a proprietary connection on the handheld hardware to a proprietary piece of hardware that is NOT a PC/Mac style "open" hardware (so the OEM controls it all). In addition there'd have to be a way to close off downloading data from WiFi or 3G to both pieces of hardware from only the legit source, which would be easier to implement if following the wholly proprietary nature of the hardware I've described above.

Of course, there'd still be hardware modders to contend with, but that would be a very small aspect of the "community".

Put it to you this way:

XBox 360 uses DVD9. And DVD9 is easy to crack, so the piracy that has hit the 360 stems from .isos of DVD9. People are running loaders to run burned DVD9's on their 360's.

The only other way (that I've heard of) is by running games off the HDD...but it is a hassle. Yes, one can "install" games onto the 360 HDD, but you need the game disc to do so, and that goes right back to the burning of non legit DVDs. Since 360 uses a proprietary HDD connection, the simple piracy that hit the original XBox (in which users just removed the HDD, downloaded roms and isos and bootloaders, etc. and ran off of the HDD) is impossible without first modding a connection to connect the 360's HDD to a PC, or a standard HDD to the 360. More no how than most folks have.

Solution?

No DVD9 drive, no DVD9 piracy. Proprietary connection on HDD makes HDD download piracy hitting a mass scale unlikely. Closed hardware so that there is no getting data from other hardware (PC or Mac) and the only way to download is through the stock hardware itself and only through the legit channels.

But that would go against that Trojan Horse thing MS is doing, and in terms of iTouch/Phone and Apple would also go against their strategy as well. If Apple did make it a closed system, with no ability to download from PC/Mac, that'd piss off a lot of users who want to put their vids and music they've got on their computer HDD onto Apple's mobile devices, and might make them not want to buy.

OK, you have this so completely wrong.

First of all, downloading from the internet is an "open port." The iPhone OS is an operating system, and thus it is 100% certain that there are vulnerabilities in it. Remember the "surf to a webpage and jailbreak your iphone automatically" days? A dedicated hacker could cook another one of those up with near certainty, and could definitely exploit any number of paid apps with internet connectivity that slip on any one of hundreds of easy to make network security mistakes.

Furthermore, there's no way to guarantee a trusted source. You can try using RSA signatures and such, but all it takes is *one* hardware hacker to tap the memory lanes and find an exploit in the system, like what happened with Blueray (except that was accomplished purely in software), and suddenly everyone can use it. This is probably harder than "just buy game X, route its connections to your PC, and jailbreak with an exploit," but is more than possible. Encryption keys have certain attributes to them that make them incredibly easy to detect.

Also, eliminating physical connections is ridiculous. What happens when you need to do a hard reset? Firmware upgrades? What if I got a 1.1.4 iPod touch, and the closest iPod service upgrade center was 2 hours away when 2.0 came out...let alone other countries...how many people would never even get the app store? What about transferring music, movies, etc. to the device, which is ostensibly its purpose? What about further upgrades, like security fixes and 3.0, etc.? Do I need to drive 2 hours every few months for my dumb iPod? Would I even want an iPod then? How much money in sales from people who didn't go to service centers might Apple lose?

Don't forget that they're also trying to compete in corporate markets, with the iPhone, and keep complexity down by having basically unified platforms. Do you have any IDEA how good it is to be able to custom-build a standard image if you're a company deploying 10,000 iphones? (I'm not sure if this is possible with the iPhone). Or how important it is to make sure that they're all up to date and as secure as possible so sensitive information isn't leaked?

If you look at the iPod Touch as a gaming device, well, go get a PSP or a DS. They're like you describe, except they're totally hacked to hell anyway.

There is one very important rule to computer security that you never learned: if the "adversary" (i.e. your customer in this case) has physical access to the system, it's all over. This rule isn't absolute, but it is good to understand why this is the case. You can delay, you can make it a pain in the ass for everyone in the world EXCEPT pirates, but you can't stop it. Not with current computing technology, not with leading-edge theory. DRM is a self-defeating pursuit for these and so many other reasons.

[writingsama]

Read what I wrote again.

It would have have to NOT be able to download anything from anywhere other than the legit sources.

In other words, it would only read proprietary formats, not "open" formats and the user would not be able to surf the net at all, really.

Would it be cracked?

Sure.

But I'm not talking eliminating it in this hypothetical hardware, but curtailing it. And you'd grasp that if you bothered to actually read things more carefully.



You've failed to grasp what I wrote.

I'm not stating that Apple would, could, or should do it. I'm stating that in order for DD to work and curtail piracy for as long as possible (note I did NOT state "eliminate piracy", and in fact suggested such a thing impossible - which you would've gotten if you read more carefully), that the proposed hardware would have to be completely closed against user modification on the software side of things and be proprietary on the hardware side of thing so as to curtail (curtail, not eliminate) ease of hardware modification.



Jesus H....

Here's what I CLEARLY wrote:

But that would go against that Trojan Horse thing MS is doing, and in terms of iTouch/Phone and Apple would also go against their strategy as well. If Apple did make it a closed system, with no ability to download from PC/Mac, that'd piss off a lot of users who want to put their vids and music they've got on their computer HDD onto Apple's mobile devices, and might make them not want to buy.

It was the last paragraph of what I wrote.

Did you read that far? Did you read at all?

Seriously. What the hell, man?



Again:


But that would go against that Trojan Horse thing MS is doing, and in terms of iTouch/Phone and Apple would also go against their strategy as well. If Apple did make it a closed system, with no ability to download from PC/Mac, that'd piss off a lot of users who want to put their vids and music they've got on their computer HDD onto Apple's mobile devices, and might make them not want to buy.

READ.



Except they're not what I described at all.

DS reads things off of flash cards. PSP can read off of memory stick. They are more easily modified via software.



Now I know you didn't read what I wrote, because I CLEARLY stated this:


In other words, there'd have to be either no input ports at all on the handheld hardware allowing for data transfer to and from a piece of "open" hardware



Again, read more carefully next time, because I CLEARLY posted:

For DD to work well, and avoid the specter of piracy as much as possible (not eliminate it, as that is near impossible, but curtail it as much as feasible)

I mean...c'mon man. READ next time.

Jeez.

P'shaw. Jeez. Fwoosh. Jesus! Blarg. Arph! Blark.

The quotes you used to reply to me in many cases don't really apply to what you were applying them to. And the main point is that such a hypothetical system is not FEASIBLE. Noone would buy it, or be able to use it once they had it, even if it was Apple that made it the shiny new wonderful happy-making life-changing iPod, let alone some startup. For DRM to be effective, it has to *encourage people to buy things*, but if noone OWNS or can use the device, then how would it accomplish that?

In addition, you failed to address the paid-app attack. Do you know how easy it is to "subvert" routing to route to your computer? So when Galcon connects to a server, really it's your computer, waiting to exploit a buffer overflow in Galcon code. These things are practically trivial to find. In addition, I (thought I) destroyed the whole idea of a "trusted" source in the first place, but let me put it very simply for you: there's no such thing as a way to make that. Look to bluray for an example. Bluray rips are available everywhere. The same attacks could've been mounted in hardware. There are steps against it (like encrypting communications between chips...which is ridiculously infeasible on a mobile platform with power requirements like they have) but all it takes is *one* person to crack it, and that crack is available to *all*.

The hypothetical way to make DRM work that you presented *would not work*. It would defeat itself before it even got started.

[pharmx]

Hey spiffyone and writingsama....are you guys pretty much saying the same thing but arguing with each other for the sake of arguing?? hehe

[rich_952000]

post points, I guess

Me, I just like testing my typing speed in topics that devolve into silly debates.;)

You can be convincing, at times;)

[RPGGuy]

Hey guys, I messed up the update. It thought one of the files was the wrong size and the game had been tampered with so the protection kicked in.

Since there's no way to revert back to 3.2 I had to take 3.3 off the store for now until it is fixed. The game doesn't check for jailbroken devices and will run fine on one.

I apologize and will get it fixed ASAP.

[skathir]

Thanks for the update RPGGuy. Will the fix work for those of us who have already updated to 3.3? I would prefer to not have to lose my progress by reverting to an earlier version.

[RPGGuy]

It will not affect your progress, so keep 3.3 installed and get 3.4 when it's out.

[f e a r l e s s]

I got the 3.3 update and the game runs fine. But, the sound is still messed up when set more than 1/4 of the way in the game settings.

(Sorry if this has been mentioned, this thread is way too long to read.)

[cloudlesssky22]

It will not affect your progress, so keep 3.3 installed and get 3.4 when it's out.

Thanks for not responding to my email to you regarding the v3.3 issue.

[RPGGuy]

Sorry but I've been away on vacation with no internet for the past 4 days. Haven't had time to answer or read any emails tonight. I used my time to fix the problem and submit an update.

[don_k]

Haven't had time to answer or read any emails tonight. I used my time to fix the problem and submit an update.

Very clever answer ;)

[gnadenlos]

I have the exact same issue. I have a 2nd Gen iPod Touch (never jailbroken) [...]I lost all my progress on the game. I was pretty upset about it
Very well done copy protection. Annoy paying customers and don't get any additional sales by blocking all jailbroken phones. Seems very reasonable to me.

[RPGGuy]

The game doesn't check for jailbroken devices and your progress won't be lost with the new update which corrects the problem. That was just older speculation by people which is incorrect.

[RPGGuy]

Version 3.4 is out today. Again I apologize for the screw up.

[Devilishly Good]

on sale for $1.99

[atommo]

Hey Chris,
We used to work at the same place :) Awesome to see you putting out better games than a big studio :p

Lots of success!

[RPGGuy]

Where did we work? Who are you? Send me a private message :)

[skyye06]

on sale again for 99c