Hmm, interesting, though time is not the best metric as some encounters simply last longer than others. There is a hidden encounter counter which we showed for a brief time but it wasn't very clear. Score should actually be a pretty good progression, especially now that you're getting better and start to play with the big boys Though progression does not come via level bosses and a fixed structure, the general idea with Phoenix is that you get better at recognising different turrets and turret configurations. Learning with the basic ship is a smart idea. I can recommend the Corsair and Mirage as well as they do not stray far from the Phoenix gameplay. Their special abilities are more like a bonus layer of flavour on top rather than something new you need to learn.
So what's up with that teaser photo you had before. Or do you have to wait til after the conference to talk about it?
I agree that rationally score should be a reasonable measure of progression. Psychologically though it doesn't give me the same sense as progressing through stages. Maybe it depends on whether you're focused more on surviving or scoring. In my case, maybe because I'm new to these kind of games, I'm focused a lot more on just surviving as long as possible, with the score being secondary. If I'm playing a game with stages, and I've always been getting killed in the second stage and then I make it to the third stage, there's a very clear sense that I'm getting farther into the game. With Phoenix I always feel like I just play for a few minutes and then get overwhelmed and die. I might see afterward that I topped my previous score, but while I was playing it didn't feel like I was obviously doing better than previously. In any case, this isn't meant to criticize the game, just to share my impressions with other players. I see from the comments that the endless randomly generated play is one of the things a lot of people like about this game, so I don't think it's a flaw, just maybe not for everyone. As far as getting better at recognising turrets and turret configurations, is the idea that I would prioritize taking out certain turrets first?
The idea is definitely to destroy turrets as they provide health when destroyed. Eventually you will recognise turrets by type and even their level. I must say that every player that provided feedback has a different approach. Personally I check the turrets, but I tend to aim for a low level one first (if present) because they are easy to snipe and won't interfere when you're navigating a difficult pattern. Then again, when those bombs/mirvs come into play they are at the top of my kill list In terms of progression the backgrounds do serve as a visual cue on how far you've come. They are based on 'level', which is hidden otherwise.
One thing I don't understand is, a lot of times I think I'm aiming right at a turret but then the whole ship explodes and I don't get any health from it. It seems destroying turrets gives you health but not destroying ships, but I don't understand how the game decides when the ship gets destroyed. How do I tell if I'm actually shooting a turret? And how does the game decide when a ship explodes? Thanks.
I think it's just a certain amount of damage to the body of the ship which eventually causes it and all turrets to explode.
Well, the weapons are generally quite spread out, so it's hard to damage only one turret. That said, the hitpoints and damaging mechanic roughly works like this. Each enemy has a base amount of hitpoints, this increases with level (progress per session) and difficulty (amount of stars). Then each turret mount has a certain strength in relation to the ship, so the turret mounts scale along with the ship. Then, when an enemy is generated with its unique turret/pattern setup, the hitpoints for te turrets are determined. This is done based on the mount strength and the level of the turret in relation to the other turrets that were placed on this ship. It's a little bit more complex of course, but I think this gives a rough idea of the hitpoints of the turrets. Now each turret has its own hitpoints and the total hitpoints of all turrets does not exceed that of the enemy ship, but comes close. When you hit a turret, the damage is done to the turret as well as to the ship. This makes it possible (but hard) to disarm an enemy, destroying all turrets without destroying the enemy. I hope this gives some insight into the mechanics
I will, but not in this thread, that would be inappropriate Don't worry though, Phoenix HD is part of the future games! We're working on a little 'fun' update first, as we call it. We're adding proper full-screen support for those who own an Apple TV or HDMI adapter. We made a cool pixel shader effect that projects the gameplay to the sides of the screen with a nice blur to create a sort of light/color scape. It works great using touch or a controller. Watch it in action in this little Vine I made yesterday, we're really having fun with this one in the studio https://vine.co/v/MdwuFq0IAUK
Full screen support? Does this mean airplay widescreen format? What... An icade original in your lap? That is crazy. Get a core or phonejoy.
Widescreen indeed. It's not me in the pic btw and we modded the iCade to have Sanwa parts (stick and buttons+switches), so we love this thing
AirPlay is restricted to 720p 30fps, so that's what we are running at. HDMI is 1080p 60fps. Due to the performance it's currently only running at this framerate on devices with an A7 processor or if it's an iPad 3. There's some frame dropping on other devices, but we're still in the process of tweaking the whole thing. So, no final word on this
What is the 'Striker' .99 IAP? I hastily saw this thread bumped, assumed new update/new ship, and purchased.
I don't quite get it Selachii. Any game can be played in ios console mode on hdmi or appletv using airplay mirrored mode. If you are still going to have borders, what is the difference? You say 1080p HDMI, but that is kinda incorrect cause lightning HDMI is not true HDMI. Or do you mean it will be airplay widescreen 720p format? You got me a little confused on this one. Airplay mirroring currently works fine for Phoenix HD, what airplay are you talking about, and how will it differ on HDMI?
Hi everyone, I've been playing Phoenix for a few months and never even knew there was a forum until now! Pretty exciting since I enjoy this game, but no one I know plays it. I looked through a couple pages and deduced that "Selachii" must be one of the Phoenix HD game developers yes? I used to do a run of this game once per day, but stopped playing for about a few weeks and I just can't seem to get back to my top score. Currently rank 12 in the US with a little over 13m points. Although since that score the closest I've gotten is over 11m. To be honest, I can't tell a change in difficulty after about ~8m give or take. I have a bunch of questions now that I can finally ask and hopefully get some replies for! Question1: How do you effectively deal with bosses that shoot those "bombs" (the balls that explode outward)? Especially when they have two turrets, one on each half of the ship. Question2: Does the difficulty level out after certain progress in the game? Question3: Is the "phoenix wake" upgrade actually good? I tried it once and don't really have an opinion of it. Question4: How much damage does the "vulcan drone" do? I usually play without it since I'm not sure how effective it is. Edit: A big question I've been wondering and testing for a while. Does colliding my ship into other ships actually do damage? It makes the same sound as when I take damage, but no HP is taken away from my ship, so I'm thinking it's the same for the enemy ships - though sometimes their turret is destroyed faster, but I think it may be from the close proximity from which I am firing.
Connector, Airplay does work out of the box, but this is not optimised. The framerate is poor and the visual quality is lower than it could be (there's some extra scaling steps being applied etc). So, the playfield remains the same for you Connector, but it will run better and look better I honestly think this is the most difficult setup you can get against you. A Warlord with 2 of those mirv-turrets. I generally try to get close and in front of the impact point, where the big projectile splits into the small ones. Usually I manage to fly through the pattern, while damaging the turret itself. The difficulty in terms of 'star rating' is at 5 at its highest. This difficulty is set based your highest achieved score, once you pass 1 million, it is set to 5. This influences the projectile speed, the speed at which you progress through the difficulty-levels of a single session and your score multiplier. During a single session, the difficulty progresses for quite a long time in terms of different turret configurations being made available to enemies. Eventually everything is available and they will only chose from a pool of 'the best' turrets. After this, their hitpoints will continue to increase indefinitely, so they will keep getting more firing time while you progress. So, the short answer is: no, it does not level out This is a time saver, it offers no other benefit whatsoever than skipping the first few levels. The Vulcan Drone adds about 10% to your total damage output. It can be a bit lower if you are unlucky with its deploy-and-shoot timings. Colliding with an enemy ship deals a constant amount of damage to the player ship. It deals no extra damage to enemy ships beyond the damage you deal with your weapons. It's generally not a healthy strategy Welcome to these forums, I hope this answers your questions and provides some insight into the inner workings. There is no reason your High Scores should be lower, the difficulty/scoring is never changed so that it would be harder to match/beat a previous high score, this would undermine the Leaderboards. Feel free to post any other questions of comments!
Ah, yes sorry, that's latest ship. You can find it at the bottom of the list in the Ship Selection screen.
