Blue Skies 2.0 Available

[RPGGuy]

The full version of Blue Skies 2.0 is now available in the App Store!

The lite 2.0 version was released a day before the full version, so now you can get it and there is no confusion between version numbers.

Over 30,000 people have downloaded Blue Skies Lite on the first day, and the reviews have been great. Thanks for all your support.

[dudehuge]

The full version of Blue Skies 2.0 is now available in the App Store!

The lite 2.0 version was released a day before the full version, so now you can get it and there is no confusion between version numbers.

Over 30,000 people have downloaded Blue Skies Lite on the first day, and the reviews have been great. Thanks for all your support.

Congrats on the reception of your app dude, I like the new version with the added eye candy.

[Chiller ONE]

The update adds many new features but unfortunaly it will also wipe your progress. :mad:

[crunc]

The update adds many new features but unfortunaly it will also wipe your progress. :mad:

Yep - same problem for me, and I have to say... having to go through those first 10 levels again is a drag. I wish there were a way to choose a starting level, or at least choose to skip all the introductory levels. Next update? Of course it would have been better had it just kept our progress.

EDIT: The game is definitely improved, once you get past the loss of progress. I'm wondering if it was due to a bug in Blue Skies or a bug in the firmware - I lost data in Dizzy Bee once after updating it, before 2.1.

Level 8 is better now that it's not just mines. I wish you could see what difficulty level you are playing at - I think I started on Hard difficulty, but I'm not sure. I like the clouds and rain, etc.

[majormauser]

Ya this is a really cool game.... D/L the Demo then the real thing....


#1 Can you Pause a Game?

Now the rest of my email is nit picky little baby stuff. So to the Developer... Awesome work. But these are things I saw that bothered me.

*The gun sound could be better.
*Strafe?
*More Enemies
*This game is fun (Hey thats not a Gripe!)

[RPGGuy]

To pause the game during gameplay click the power button and again to unpause.

[RPGGuy]

The progress loss is as designed and not a bug. The level difficulty was ramped up and the file format was changed, so it uses a different save file. I figured you'd want to play through the game again to see what had changed anyways.

[crunc]

Well, I have to say that that wasn't the best decision. The update included the ability to start over anyway, and with that the user could decide whether or not to play the levels over again, rather then being forced to do so, and unexpectedly at that. For me it wasn't a huge problem because I wasn't that far along - I had stopped playing in part because I wanted to wait for this update (the inability to pause and resume the game where left off in 1.0 was a killer for me.) So, the update is great, but in the future, and for future projects, I'd suggest not trashing players progress by design.

[XOrlandoPX]

Congratulations RPGGuy Blue Skies is now under the "Top Paid Apps" page in iTunes :)

[vandy1997]

Congrats, RPGGuy! I want to see your app do well since you took our advice to heart. :D

[darthwen]

I lose my progress every time when I play the arcade mode. I can still continue the story, but it always starts of at chapter 2, and somehow, I have all the weapons and 6 lifes and all the money I made in the arcade mode.:confused:

[davidmdowning42]

This is an awesome game. I gotta say, you shouldn't have listened to the price complainers. The demo probably would have solved your woes. Once the Lite version did it's job,was easy to see what a great game it is. The screen shots on iTunes did not do the graphics justice. I don't know how. They were obviously the actual game graphics. I know you added the clouds and rain, but the rest of the graphics are the same as before, right? I guess I just had to see them in motion to tell that they weren't as dated as the pics made them seem. I also couldn't tell from the description on the store what kind of game it really was. I thought it was a scrolling 2D shooter, albeit with RPG "elements." The fact that you actually choose which direction to fly makes it an entirely different genre, which I wouldn't know how to classify.

Moral of the story: make a free preview of your game.

One suggestion: could there be an option to switch between vertical & landscape view? Sometimes things right in front of me seem to sneak up too fast. If it was vertical, you'd have more time to react. Then again, I'm not sure how much I'd miss the peripheral vision I'd lose. So an option to switch between would be really cool. Especially if you could do it live in the middle of a game!

[Nursedad]

Update definitely adds to the success of this game.

Agree with some of the suggestions already offered up to the DEV in this thread. Would also like to see some more work put into the calibration piece. I still cannot calibrate the screen when laying on my back on the couch.

Otherwise...great game!

- - Jeff

[vandy1997]

This game would not have sold as many copies for $9.99 - no matter how great it is. Trust me. The apps in the top 25 that sell for $9.99 are from established developers. Even Pangea has lowered Cro-Mag Rally and Enigmo, two exceptional games, from $9.99 to $1.99 and $4.99, respectively. If this game becomes successful, this developer can sell his next game for $7.99 to start, and he will do well. The problem that developers are not noticing when comparing the iPhone platform to the Nintendo DS is that you cannot sell the app when you get bored of it!! And trust me, none of these apps has seemed so astounding to me that I will keep it on my phone for more than a few days. I am sure that there are quite a few Nintendo DS users who wait for those who purchase the games when they come out at a higher price and sell them at a lower price once they get tired of the game. In the case of the iPhone/iPod touch, that never happens. Therefore, those people will wait for a price cut to buy. That is fine if the price cut occurs within a relatively short period of time (2 or 3 weeks). If not, those people may purchase another app that sells for less. It is a matter of economics and the fact that there is no way to transfer these apps from one user to another. So they cannot be sold on the "previously owned" market. That's one of the major reasons why a lower price is required, and developers who embrace that notion to begin with will create a larger fan base and gain more profits overall! Look at Trism as an example - the guy sold it for $4.99 from the outset, and he made about $250k in two months, I believe. Your app has to be pretty good and/or innovative, however. Crappy apps will still fail in the long run, or I hope so!!

[RPGGuy]

I originally was going to make the game vertical but the iphone feels more natural in your hands in landscape, especially when using the accelerometer to steer. I did push the helicopter down from the center so you can see a little further in front of you.

The tanks, helicopter, blimps, and terrain were changed in 2.0. The rest of the graphics are the same.

In arcade mode you have to finish the whole level or you will lose your progress.

For strafing I think I'm going to add buttons on either side of the screen in the middle.

I agree with some comments that the shadows are too dark. I will fix that up in a future version.

[majormauser]

I love this game but these are the serious problems that I can't believe are not in version 2.0.

#1 no real Pause - Please ADD a way to Pause the game.

#2 Even when my iPhone is set to speakers OFF the sound still plays. Every other App does not work this way. When I flick the NO RING switch the sound is OFF. Not so with Blue Skies. Also I think the Audio even when turned down plays at full blast.....:mad:

#3 The Accelometer setting while welcome... don't really seem to be working correctly. After changing the settings I would like to reset them to the FACTORY defaults. Right now my helecopter flys backwards when I push forward or back.

Thanks

MM

[davidmdowning42]

Oh! And I have to say this, just because I've never had the chance to say this directly to a dev before. I don't think that the concept I'm about to talk about messes up your game at all. But it's an across the board video game thing that I've been noticing forever.

A physics issue: When a body is carried by another body in motion, the moving body imparts its motion to it.
Examples:
* When you stand on a moving bus and jump into the air, the bus doesn't move out from under you, you come down in the same place on the bus floor that you jumped from.
* When you stand in an elevator going down and jump, you can't jump extra high because the elevator falls out from under you. The downward motion has already been imparted to you, and you just jump as high as you ever could.
* If you throw a ball straight out the window of a moving car, from your perspective the ball appears to go straight out from you. But from the outside one could see the ball also follow the car's forward motion, and thusly go out diagonally rather than perfectly perpedicular from the car, because the car imparted it's motion. It would have to in order to appear perpendicluar to the person in the moving car.

Groking?

So when I play Mario, and I'm standing on a moving platform, and a low lying obstacle crosses the path of the platform. I shouldn't have to push forward when I jump over the obstacle to stay on the platform. It should impart it's motion to me. I should merely have to jump in place.

So anybody who knows more about physics than I do correct me if I'm wrong but-
If I'm flying a helicoptor and it's spinning/turning and I shoot a missle, shouldn't the motion of my spin be imparted to it?

This is something that I have neer seen any physics engine for any game ever address, so I'm sure it would be ridiculously difficult to do something like this with this great, but simple 2D game. I just wondered if you or any other devs around here had ever considered this?

[RPGGuy]

#1. Yes there is. Click the power button on your phone (the button on the top). It will go into power save mode and click it again to unpause.

#2. I don't know if there is something I need to detect for that the no ring switch. The music is controlled in the options screen. It definitely isn't playing full blast no matter what here.

#3. The calibration screen shows the accelerometer values. Hold it so x = -0.8, y = 0, z = -0.8 and that is the default setting.




I love this game but these are the serious problems that I can't believe are not in version 2.0.

#1 no real Pause - Please ADD a way to Pause the game.

#2 Even when my iPhone is set to speakers OFF the sound still plays. Every other App does not work this way. When I flick the NO RING switch the sound is OFF. Not so with Blue Skies. Also I think the Audio even when turned down plays at full blast.....:mad:

#2 The Accelometer setting while welcome... don't really seem to be working correctly. After changing the settings I would like to reset them to the FACTORY defaults. Right now my helecopter flys backwards when I push forward or back.

Thanks

MM

[RPGGuy]

David..

Missiles are propelled by rockets which would hopefully make any angular velocity from the helicopter small in comparison. Otherwise you would have to watch out for your own missiles lol.

Come on... it's an arcade game. :)

[davidmdowning42]

Like I said, I don't think you need to change it at all. Your rocket point is well taken. Even if I was techinically right, since nobody has ever paid attention to this aspect of physics, I'm sure it would throw everything off for most players, because we've never dealt with it before.

[majormauser]

I originally was going to make the game vertical but the iphone feels more natural in your hands in landscape, especially when using the accelerometer to steer. I did push the helicopter down from the center so you can see a little further in front of you.

The tanks, helicopter, blimps, and terrain were changed in 2.0. The rest of the graphics are the same.

-The changes were welcome!

In arcade mode you have to finish the whole level or you will lose your progress.

- Please add a global PAUSE

For strafing I think I'm going to add buttons on either side of the screen in the middle.

- I like that thought the middle would work .... just make sure they are sort of visiable.

I agree with some comments that the shadows are too dark. I will fix that up in a future version.

- they seemed ok to me.

[crunc]

I'm glad this game is horizontal. Vertically oriented games that have me tapping buttons on screen (whether seen or not) with two hands, are too cramped for me. I really like the game Space Invasion, for example, but I can't play it very long due the vertical design.

Overall the updates in 2.0 are all great. Pause by turning off the screen works, but perhaps you could add a note in one of the tutorial levels about this? It may seem obvious now, but I didn't think to do that either until you mentioned it. Having said that, I still think putting a pause icon at the middle of the top edge (or perhaps the bottom edge) would be the best solution and avoid any need to answer questions about it.

Also I have a request, and that is that there be an option to swap the shoot and select weapon locations. I.e. so that shooting could be at the top corners and weapons selection at the bottom corners. I think that would be more comfortable for me.

[majormauser]

Please see if you can come op with some other way to pause... because 1/2 the time I want to Pause I want to use something else on the iPhone. I love the application. just so you know.

P.S. The way you setup the controls was one of the reasons I purchased the game. the 16:9 Aspect was the perfect choice and the game plays like Butter!

[RPGGuy]

You can't run more than one application on the iphone at once, so pausing and using the iphone for something else is impossible.

[majormauser]

You can't run more than one application on the iphone at once, so pausing and using the iphone for something else is impossible.

Check out TRISM

[dudehuge]

Check out TRISM

Dude there's no 3rd Party Background Processing on iPhones. Stop dreaming.

[majormauser]

Dude there's no 3rd Party Background Processing on iPhones. Stop dreaming.

I'm not asking it to process while paused. Look at Trism... you can come back to the state you left it.

Hey I'm also sending this to the programer please do not put down which you do not know. If he wants to listen to me he can, if not.. I'm ok with it. But if I sit back and don't say anything thats silly.

[davidmdowning42]

From what I understand (as a completely ignorant non-programmer) is that an app has some extremely limited amount of time after it is quit to run in the background just long enough to save it's current state. That's all we want it to do. Just save the state, exactly where it is, to pick right back up next time we run it.

An actual pause button or some such apparatus is helpful to let us know that this is actually happening. A pause button which brings up a choice between "Resume" and "Save and Quit" would be perfect, and wouldn't require any background processing at all.

I personally believe (as I've said before) that such an option should be present in ALL games for these devices. It's a phone first and foremost and the very nature of a phone is that you may have your game interrupted at any moment. The very nature of any portable device is that you are using "out on the go" and are thusly quite likley to be distracted from it at any moment.

Love this game by the way. So far in my playing the levels have not gotten long enough to make starting over at the beginning of the last level played too annoying. If they DO get longer, then this will be a slight problem. It's a major problem with Bugdom 2. (Which I've also said before. I'm getting redundant, maybe I should stop posting...)

[vandy1997]

I thought that it was one of Apple's requirements for applications - that if a phone call comes in, the app will close and it will save its state at the time of the call. When the user opens the app again, it should commence where it left off when the phone call came in. That's what happens with the iPod. It seems like a lot of programmers aren't following this rule. Maybe they're not sure how to program it. That is Apple's fault for continuing with the NDA requirements, which makes it more difficult for developers to share information as to how to program certain features.

With respect to RPGGuy, he should try to implement the pause (with resume, and save and quit options), since these options would make the game more useful to users. The game should save its state when a phone call comes in and return to it when the user hangs up and restarts the app. I agree that these are essential features in all applications.

[arn]

I thought that it was one of Apple's requirements for applications - that if a phone call comes in, the app will close and it will save its state at the time of the call.

Heh. I think the requirement is more like"when a phone call comes in, the app will close." :) I don't think saving state is a requirement, just no multitasking.

arn

[lw1234]

I have seen one person address this, but I had the same problem.

I played the 2.0 game to level 15. The next day, I wanted to play some arcade mode so I did. I didn't kill on 99 enemies, but I didn't really care if it saved my progress in arcade mode.

What DID happen, however, is that when I went to continue story, I was now all the way back to level 2. I had all of the arcade mode weapons and 6 helicopters instead of 3, but I lost 13 levels of progress. Because the levels are so long, this felt like a HUGE waste of time. It's cool to have the weapons early, but Arcade mode totally kills your saved game.

I'm assuming you didn't mean for this to happen, and I'm wondering if anyone else had this problem?

[RPGGuy]

Oops. No that's obviously a bug :)

[vandy1997]

I guess that you're right. That's why I see all of these apps that are approved without saving their state. I thought that I had read that somewhere, but maybe it was just wishful thinking! :) It would be nice to see, though, especially on the iPhone, since it can be interrupted by phone calls and SMS messages.

Heh. I think the requirement is more like"when a phone call comes in, the app will close." :) I don't think saving state is a requirement, just no multitasking.

arn

[nippyjun]

I've noticed a movement bug. Sometimes when starting a new level my copter will only go forwards. I have to restart the game to get the movement to "reset". Otherwise i'm having a lot of fun with it. Very much worth the cost.

[RPGGuy]

Sometimes the accelerometer doesn't report any values. This is a bug in the firmware and happens for all games.

BTW, what is up with all the hate messages for the Blue Skies Lite reviews. Do other apps get this?

[nippyjun]

Sometimes the accelerometer doesn't report any values. This is a bug in the firmware and happens for all games.

BTW, what is up with all the hate messages for the Blue Skies Lite reviews. Do other apps get this?

Got you, no problemo. Does the position that i use for "neutral" affect this in any way?

I do see hate messages in other apps. It's such a strange little world that some people live in to get off on dissing an app. They need to get a life.

[RPGGuy]

If you can steer left and right then the accelerometer is working fine. If the forward and backward isn't working the way you want it's a calibration issue. Not all angles work. It's best if you sit upright in a chair, hold it in front of you and tilted 45 degrees back. (Values -0.8, 0, -0.8)

[warburg]

Is there any kind of user manual for this game to help those of us who do not pick these things up well without guidance?