johnbowers
08-01-2008, 12:21 PM
Ok guys. There is a lot of talk about the controls of StarSmasher so I wanted to lay out my reasons for designing the controls the way they are and then start a discussion on how to improve them. A 1.0.2 update has been shipped to Apple this morning that increases the sensitivity of the controls by 50%. For part of the 1.1 update I want to allow for a slider that lets you select your own sensitivity. I'm not sure that everyone will be happy even with this solution, however, for reasons I will detail below.
Okay, so in reality a spaceship would experience no friction. In order to change direction it would have to apply acceleration in the opposite direction of its velocity. To do so quickly requires A LOT of acceleration. A car, on the other hand, doesn't really have this problem. The tires allow you to change direction easily (I think, but my physics are rusty, this is because of the friction between the tires and the road). A spaceship then is akin to a car that is hydroplaning.
Now, I didn't think that a full space sim was the purpose of SS so I added friction, but I did want to give the sort of "feel" that you might have flying a spaceship. Because of this tilting, your iTouch changes the acceleration of the player ship rather than changing the velocity as I imagine a car or motorcycle sim would. This was a conscious decision and it felt like the right thing to do.
So, I have vamped up the acceleration by 50%. This should make a lot of people happy (crossed fingers) but some people, I think, are really expecting the controls to be responsive in the way that a car sim would be. In other words, they want the velocity to be directly tied to the position of the iPhone. I think this is undesirable because it makes the game nothing more than a car sim with an added height direction, however, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Should I continue with my reasoning for acceleration based controls, or should I switch to velocity based controls? Or other options? Also keep in mind that the 1.0.2 update probably won't be available until mid-week next week so you might want to wait to respond until you've had a chance to get to know them.
Okay, so in reality a spaceship would experience no friction. In order to change direction it would have to apply acceleration in the opposite direction of its velocity. To do so quickly requires A LOT of acceleration. A car, on the other hand, doesn't really have this problem. The tires allow you to change direction easily (I think, but my physics are rusty, this is because of the friction between the tires and the road). A spaceship then is akin to a car that is hydroplaning.
Now, I didn't think that a full space sim was the purpose of SS so I added friction, but I did want to give the sort of "feel" that you might have flying a spaceship. Because of this tilting, your iTouch changes the acceleration of the player ship rather than changing the velocity as I imagine a car or motorcycle sim would. This was a conscious decision and it felt like the right thing to do.
So, I have vamped up the acceleration by 50%. This should make a lot of people happy (crossed fingers) but some people, I think, are really expecting the controls to be responsive in the way that a car sim would be. In other words, they want the velocity to be directly tied to the position of the iPhone. I think this is undesirable because it makes the game nothing more than a car sim with an added height direction, however, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Should I continue with my reasoning for acceleration based controls, or should I switch to velocity based controls? Or other options? Also keep in mind that the 1.0.2 update probably won't be available until mid-week next week so you might want to wait to respond until you've had a chance to get to know them.