Launches worldwide November 10th Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Starside Arena Epic Owl Ltd Genres: Games Simulation Strategy Free Supported Devices: iPhone4 iPad2Wifi iPad23G iPhone4S iPadThirdGen iPadThirdGen4G iPhone5 iPodTouchFifthGen iPadFourthGen iPadFourthGen4G iPadMini iPadMini4G iPhone5c iPhone5s iPhone6 iPhone6Plus iPodTouchSixthGen Minimum iOS Version: iOS 7.0 Download Size: 92.8MB Starside Arena Welcome to Starside Arena - Design spaceships and battle in futuristic space gladiator fights for fortune and fame!… Free Buy Now Watch Media DetailsWelcome to Starside Arena - Design spaceships and battle in futuristic space gladiator fights for fortune and fame!It's the year 4000-something. You are a rookie spaceship designer wanting to prove yourself to the world. Enter Starside Arena, an entertainment arena of the future, where only the best of the best rule!Competitive Multiplayer Game featuring layers of deep strategy and endlessly evolving game content!FEATURES: - Unique, never before seen gameplay- Dozens of exciting spaceship blueprints to unlock and build- Masses of different modules to use on your ship design- Beautiful PvP space battles to validate your spaceships- Beat ships designed by other players to progress in ranks and leaguesTake your place as the Top #1 spaceship designer of Starside Arena!NOTE! Starside Arena is free to download and play. However, some game items can also be purchased for real money. If you don't want to use this feature, please disable in-app purchases in your device's settings.NOTE! Network connection is required to play. Information Seller: Genre:Simulation, Strategy Release:Nov 07, 2015 Updated:Nov 30, -0001 Version: Size:0.0 TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating: (17) Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal NOEN Well-Known Member Jul 31, 2012 3,245 0 0 U.S. #2 NOEN, Nov 7, 2015 This looks interesting. Downloading now. fabianb Well-Known Member Nov 1, 2014 1,009 0 36 #3 fabianb, Nov 7, 2015 'Gameplay'... All you do is place different blocks in your spaceship and watch it battle itself. You can't control anything in the fight. Deleted. Kirenx Well-Known Member Mar 16, 2012 774 0 0 #4 Kirenx, Nov 7, 2015 I kind of like it. It is like a faster paced Gratuitous Space Battles. There are lots of ships and mods to unlock, and there doesn't seem to be any paywall. Yeah it is fairly simplistic in terms of gameplay, but combat is quick enough to make the game more about fiddling with your ship builds to find out what works. Collin Well-Known Member Jul 29, 2010 716 43 28 Graphic Designer/Illustrator/Art Director Colorado Springs, CO https://www.theislandsofmisfitcreativity.com/ #5 Collin, Nov 8, 2015 My impressions are, meh. Assembling the ships is somewhat fun, however you have no control over your ship in battle. So far, all but the weakest two shells have a limited number of uses in battle before they have to either be repaired using premium currency, or you wait for a cool down timer to end. The number of uses also drops the bigger the ship is, and the cost to instantly repair goes up. I would call that a bit of a paywall, unless you don't mind timers. The battle itself (at least to level 4) is just watching the ships rubber band at each other and unload what weapons they can. There doesn't appear to be any real tactics on display. If you could choose from a list of tactics to employ during battle, that would at least add a bit of interactivity beyond trying different ship loadouts. Visually, your ship doesn't look any different depending on what you have loaded, so it always looks the same no matter how you trick it out; at least as far as I can tell. After the first couple of battles I always switch to damage view which I will talk about next. Beyond puffs of smoke, you can't see damage to the ships until one of you blow up, unless you turn on damage view. Then what you see are cubes for each block of your ship that change color from green to yellow to red to black based on the damage they've taken. I would assume that, as components take damage and are knocked out, their efficiency drops. What would help convey that would be a list of what components you have on your ship that also shows their health in real time. So, in all, meh. I'll give it one more shot today to wow me, and if it fails, it'll be deleted. skoptic Well-Known Member Apr 3, 2015 634 82 28 #6 skoptic, Nov 9, 2015 Saw previews, interested! Saw it was free, damn.... Saw 'cool down timer' .... App unfollowed, never to be mentioned again Mythago Active Member Jan 1, 2013 28 0 0 #7 Mythago, Nov 10, 2015 I like this game, but I also feel there's room for improvement. As someone mentioned, choosing a tactic would be great. For example, ships seem to fly towards the enemy even if their guns have better range. GiHubb Well-Known Member Patreon Silver Apr 27, 2010 1,049 39 48 CEO #8 GiHubb, Nov 10, 2015 Seeing the preview, I was hoping this would be like the head to head mode of Star Control 2. Disappointed this isn't the case. roy2x Well-Known Member Feb 27, 2015 91 0 0 #9 roy2x, Nov 11, 2015 The timers are terrible. BravadoWaffle Well-Known Member Sep 25, 2010 420 0 16 Game Designer http://www.bravadowaffle.com #10 BravadoWaffle, Nov 12, 2015 I want to like this game, I really do. Lots of potential... but it falls short in every aspect other than building the ship. I'm level 6 now and see the fun that this game could be. But, the timers are rough, the battles are boring, and multiplayer is... completely uninspiring. Game Fixes: Lower ALL the timers please. Allow the player to at least have a tiny bit of control over the ship during the battle like being able to switch up the AI battle tactics... telling the AI to stay far away, ram enemy, circle enemy, or maneuver erratically to dodge hits should be simple enough. Multiplayer battles need to be more than a static screen and a random numbers generator... I want to see my big fleet flying into battle against the opponent's fleet and watch the battle as it happens. I also want to be able to customize the ships in my fleet. I know you probably can't have control during the battle but it would be nice to at least assign each ship a role for the battle like support, close attack, flankers, direct assault, etc... As I said, I want to like this game. I like watching my ship battle without having to be overly involved. With some fixes it could be lots of fun. Right now it is... meh. BravadoWaffle Well-Known Member Sep 25, 2010 420 0 16 Game Designer http://www.bravadowaffle.com #11 BravadoWaffle, Nov 14, 2015 Update after playing for a few days- so I'm revising my last review. After playing for a while I'm getting thoroughly hooked. There is a lot of room for customization as you progress. You control the battle by controlling your build and there are some pretty interesting choices in what you research and buy and equip. It feels very balanced and fun so far. It seems like laser builds are better overall so far... I didn't realize the battles you do are against other players and their ship builds. That is cool. The game is pretty generous in giving out its premium currency, but I couldn't resist and threw some money their way since it is providing me a good amount of fun. Anyway, there is a lot going for this game if you delve into it a little beyond the first few levels. I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe they need to give players a taste of what the later stages of gameplay are like when they first start out, so they know there is more to it than the what you have at level 1. K-Dog Well-Known Member Apr 29, 2011 294 0 0 #12 K-Dog, Nov 15, 2015 Pretty addictive! Building ship configurations is awesome, great and easy interface. The mix of weapons, defense and utility is creative and varied. Each level up unlocks either new ship shapes or additional build parts so there is a sense of progression. The ship shapes are interesting and each adds a different flavour. There's a few improvements that would be awesome but easier said than done! After a few goes you end up just watching in damage mode as your ship looks no different in game no matter how you build the ship. It's a real shame you can't see the individual components in game and also the full spec of your enemy too (unless I've missed it!). That would have been great so you can truly analyse each battle. I know you get to see a general look of the enemy before the battle and what build they are, but seeing full spec would be much more interesting. I'd like to analyse each battle a bit more as sometimes an enemy just destroys you easily even if several ship classes below you. I guess it's the seemingly random matchmaking and random way the computer plays out the battle. The biggest gripe is the timers. I understand why they are there, but they seem a bit too high and ramp up quickly when you unlock each better ship. It's over an hour already for Valkyrie for example. Having 3 battles and then having to wait is annoying, especially when the battles can sometimes last just 10 seconds. If each new ship has a longer timer, it will be ridiculous later in the game. This links back round to the randomness of the matchmaking and gameplay. If you wait an hour just to have 3 crushing defeats, then timers back up, that's quite frustrating. Conversely, if you happen to win those 3 matches, you feel awesome. But then timers appear again boo hoo! Not sure what the solution is. Maybe make it a paid game after the first few trial levels which removes all timers or something. Dunno what the perfect balance would be, but I hate the thought of spending money on in-game currency if that yields a temporary resource only. Just to be clear, you can negate the timers but they are not removed permanently. Add to the fact you need that currency to unlock new ship slots, it's clear this is the monetisation aspect of the game. Of course, the more slots you have the more ships you have, and the more you can play. However, the cost of that next slot ramps up very highly too - it's kinda puts you off dropping real cash on the game. Not tried Fleet Arena, as can't face using up the in game coin on buying ships that stay destroyed if they die. I may be missing out something awesome, and may get involved at a later stage. All that said, I'm just hooked still. I know I've gone on about the issues in more detail but it's because this game has so much potential to be truly awesome. Any kind of update would be very welcome though! Ribatzki Active Member Nov 17, 2015 27 0 0 #13 Ribatzki, Nov 17, 2015 Last edited: Nov 17, 2015 Hey everyone, I'm Ribatzki, the designer of Starside Arena. I'm happy to see some discussion going on here, and especially happy to see some of you have stuck with it Just popping by to let you know we are following the talk and taking note of your concerns and ideas. If there's any questions I could answer don't hesitate to post them. To address some of the most burning issues here, let's have a look at the ship repair timers and controllability: Earlier patches of the game had lower cooldowns, but this resulted in players either burning out while playing a large number of sessions daily, and it also led to some frustration from the experience of playing sub-optimally, if you were unable to log on every few minutes. The current timers are, of course, the result of what we believe to be the best for now, but rest assured we'll keep tracking performance and threads to gain better understanding of their impact and reception. Having control of your ship in battle is a more complex issue. We've experimented with some methods, but none have been satisfactory or in line with our design principles. One core philosophy for Starside has been to keep the game as low-tension and self-paced as possible. No fast reflexes or coordination required, just good ol' plain strategy. Another issue comes up when balancing the actual PvP battles. The player initiating the fight would have markedly more control over the result, skewing the game balance by vast amounts. When introducing controls that had only minor impact, they felt frustrating and inefficient. I confess it's a tough nut to crack and there may well be a good way to implement this, but I haven't figured it out yet. As it stands the nature of the game being passive and relaxed is still a priority for us, and it's unlikely to change. What I can reveal is that we are working on future updates that bring a bit more customization and targets for you players. Doing our best to make Starside Arena worth all your time Keep it cool! -Ribatzki Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 950 205 43 #14 Stronsay, Nov 17, 2015 I'm enjoying Starside Arena as it is. I like the emphasis being purely on design and experimentation. There's a million twitch space shooters out there so it's refreshing to see this more considered approach. The timers are about right, but then I prefer playing this type of game in short bursts. The passive battles are great as this allows time to study how a design is faring, which components are vulnerable and where improvements can be made. It can be disconcerting not knowing what type of opponent my ship will be up against but I imagine real space battles are like that. Adds a bit of tension to an overall low tension experience. All I would ask is for more customisation options and more varied targets but it looks like the Epic Owls are already working on these. K-Dog Well-Known Member Apr 29, 2011 294 0 0 #15 K-Dog, Nov 17, 2015 Great to see some input from the Devs! Now I'm a little deeper into the game, I can say I'm still very much hooked. The build-only gameplay is very interesting and unique, and any victory you have is just the greatest feeling - especially after a long slog against an equally matched opponent. This game is my new addiction! Timers are still an interesting topic. I will say that now I have more slots unlocked it's a little more bearable - and I mean that it's good to have a decent chunk of time that it takes to play through 3 lives of 4 ships. The battles take longer as you get bigger and better ships. Of course, you still get a few easy wins (yay!) but equally & more often a few bad beatings (boo hoo!). Still unsure what the ideal solution would be, but I've noticed that the timers aren't quite true time - they count down a little faster than normal earth seconds. So actually this game is perfect in bursts. I must say that I've become a little numb when I lose, especially to seemingly much lower class ships. This is where seeing the full spec of the enemy would help - either during or after the battle, or at the very start of the battle when the ships so that tense floating stand off (love the pre-tension of that before all hell breaks loose!). So a full spec would be really good to see so you can truly gauge where you went wrong in your build for that match up. Other than this, my other general musings are... Would be good to understand matchmaking system, and also the workings behind the coins you earn for wins and losses. More graphical variety. Or at least maybe have the graphic view as standard and the damage/block view as permanent icons on the corner of the screen - so best of both worlds from current graphic assets. More customisation options - ship colour? Decals? A calling sign? Anything like that to give a bit more differentiation. It's your own fault for making the building and tinkering so satisfying - we all love to tinker don't we!!! A dynamic statistics section of the build screen. As well as showing power requirement vs consumption, we could see the total fire power strength, total defense, max range etc. And then as you add or swap components, it would update. Prob not explained very well, and maybe not helpful adding missile damage to laser damage to give an aggregate for example. Dunno, maybe total potential damage per second? Maybe some more variety in daily missions, or introduce achievements. Like I said, it's musings. Greedy musings, but only because I'm so into this game. Get it, drop a little coin to support the Devs, you won't be disappointed! Ribatzki Active Member Nov 17, 2015 27 0 0 #16 Ribatzki, Nov 17, 2015 Greetings K-Dog, and thanks for the kind words and input! That's an interesting few topics you brought up, and I'd be happy to discuss. The session length and timers were indeed designed with consideration to higher level players having multiple ship slots: as the session cooldowns go up, you also get an increasingly long game out each time you rinse through your fleet. I'm not completely sure the timers as they currently stand have the best possible duration, but, as promised, I'm keeping an eye on it and tweaking if warranted. We've gone through the idea of seeing the enemy ship layout in detail at the studio more than a few times. While it does grant a better perspective for players seeking to enhance their own designs or weigh their chances against a particular enemy, they also reveal the only skill-related portion of the game: how to design a good ship. It's a two-edged sword. Seeing the enemy design would allow an experienced player to reroll his enemies knowing exactly who they'll win against, but it would add a layer of depth. I'll consider some compromise ideas on how we might work this feature out in the future. The matchmaking system searches for opponents in a given range around your own rating. However, if you lose a match, the search parameters dip down slightly to find a more likely victory for your next match. The game repeats this process up to a few times, and settles to normal search parameters when it finds a comfortable challenge level for you. The experience and Credit rewards for victories are fixed values depending on the ship you win, with slight variation depending on whether you destroyed their support ships (if they had any). The defeat rewards are a percentage of the full victory rewards that scales with the total number of modules you destroyed before going down. Hope this clears it out! I agree there is not enough room to distinguish your prized ship at this time. Our backlog has ideas such as custom colors, possibly even different skins, but as we have higher priorities development-wize at the moment, they will have to wait. But something better concerning customization is coming along, and we're working hard to squeeze it into the next patch The optimal scenario for the battle view would be to display both the health grid and the pretty graphics simultaneously. We've tried variants of this both in-game and on paper, but they fall short for several reasons. The devices with smaller screen sizes get really cluttered when you have a miniature health grid with both players' ships (including supports), making the data nearly unreadable. When fitted on a larger screen the clutter clears up a bit, but there is slight disconnection between the damage being taken or dealt and what's happening on the screen. It's surprisingly difficult to comprehend the orientation of the ships and the relative positions of where damage is being received when the stationary health displays do not rotate or move, compared to seeing the grid change color exactly where that pesky missile struck you. I'll consider looking into a novelty approach, but I can't promise anything. A power / DPS -breakdown on the build screen would be a treat for you thorough theorists! The current implementation is there for the plain reason of saving a maximal amount of screen space for building, and that can't be altered. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't consider having a drop-down menu / advanced stats tab on the screen that one could examine in detail when feeling like it. Daily missions are at their bare minimum at the moment. I once had this idea of having tiered missions, such as first winning 3 matches, then winning 5, then winning an outmatched battle and such, but the effort-to-value ratio on our particularly tight production schedule did not allow for it at that time. It may be revisited in the future, perhaps in the form of custom missions. Do note that this is all theory at the moment; we work priorities one patch at a time, and do our best to address the most burning issues first And to Stronsay - thanks for the positive feedback! We'll work hard to keep the game in your list of favorites. -Ribatzki K-Dog Well-Known Member Apr 29, 2011 294 0 0 #17 K-Dog, Nov 17, 2015 Thanks for the reply, really good engagement there! I look forward to whatever the future may bring for game!!! roy2x Well-Known Member Feb 27, 2015 91 0 0 #18 roy2x, Nov 18, 2015 On the subject of timers, I find it better burning out after a long gaming session than picking a game i can play for only a couple of minutes every 2-3 hours or so eventually forgetting about it. Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 950 205 43 #19 Stronsay, Nov 18, 2015 Yes, thanks for that comprehensive reply Ribatzki. Very interesting and helpful to know what's happening under the hood together with the design concepts. I have to say also that the development blog on the Epic Owl website is the best I've seen, like reading a gripping novel in places, and this as much as gameplay makes me want to stay with Starside Arena. Very enlightening to learn about the whole process from starting the business, how the game evolved, the financing issues, and of cousre the recent verbal jousting with Warren Spector. I wish this open and friendly team every success. Ribatzki Active Member Nov 17, 2015 27 0 0 #20 Ribatzki, Nov 18, 2015 I'm very happy to hear you've enjoyed our efforts! We'll strive to keep the discussion open and our process transparent in the future too. I apologize for slacking out on the blogs lately; the launch of the game has had us all quite busy, but I hope to return to that task once I've something meaningful enough to say I have relayed your wishes of success to our team, and we are all grateful for the gesture. Thank you! I read your message about the timers earlier, and I am sorry that they have proven a nuisance for you. I wish there was a solution that worked for everyone, but as it stands, this format has proven the best for our audience on average. I actually consider myself quite the gamer and know the feeling of wanting to pour hours into a great experience at once. Trust me, I know. The thing with strictly sessioned experiences on the mobile has its reasons. Having a lengthy sit on that tiny touchscreen can be quite taxing, it's a media that was never intended for long continuous use. Cutting the session time down and providing cooldowns helps keep the experience fresh, and one session never becomes a physical feat. I understand it's not the answer you'd like to hear, but I hope it helps illustrate the choices we've made. A lot of the decisions I have to make regarding the design are choosing between the lesser of two evils. I regret this solution was the wrong one for you, but I hope you'll enjoy the game when those pesky timers are over -Ribatzki (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 1 of 12 1 ← 2 3 4 5 6 → 12 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Do you already have an account? No, create an account now. Yes, my password is: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
'Gameplay'... All you do is place different blocks in your spaceship and watch it battle itself. You can't control anything in the fight. Deleted.
I kind of like it. It is like a faster paced Gratuitous Space Battles. There are lots of ships and mods to unlock, and there doesn't seem to be any paywall. Yeah it is fairly simplistic in terms of gameplay, but combat is quick enough to make the game more about fiddling with your ship builds to find out what works.
My impressions are, meh. Assembling the ships is somewhat fun, however you have no control over your ship in battle. So far, all but the weakest two shells have a limited number of uses in battle before they have to either be repaired using premium currency, or you wait for a cool down timer to end. The number of uses also drops the bigger the ship is, and the cost to instantly repair goes up. I would call that a bit of a paywall, unless you don't mind timers. The battle itself (at least to level 4) is just watching the ships rubber band at each other and unload what weapons they can. There doesn't appear to be any real tactics on display. If you could choose from a list of tactics to employ during battle, that would at least add a bit of interactivity beyond trying different ship loadouts. Visually, your ship doesn't look any different depending on what you have loaded, so it always looks the same no matter how you trick it out; at least as far as I can tell. After the first couple of battles I always switch to damage view which I will talk about next. Beyond puffs of smoke, you can't see damage to the ships until one of you blow up, unless you turn on damage view. Then what you see are cubes for each block of your ship that change color from green to yellow to red to black based on the damage they've taken. I would assume that, as components take damage and are knocked out, their efficiency drops. What would help convey that would be a list of what components you have on your ship that also shows their health in real time. So, in all, meh. I'll give it one more shot today to wow me, and if it fails, it'll be deleted.
Saw previews, interested! Saw it was free, damn.... Saw 'cool down timer' .... App unfollowed, never to be mentioned again
I like this game, but I also feel there's room for improvement. As someone mentioned, choosing a tactic would be great. For example, ships seem to fly towards the enemy even if their guns have better range.
Seeing the preview, I was hoping this would be like the head to head mode of Star Control 2. Disappointed this isn't the case.
I want to like this game, I really do. Lots of potential... but it falls short in every aspect other than building the ship. I'm level 6 now and see the fun that this game could be. But, the timers are rough, the battles are boring, and multiplayer is... completely uninspiring. Game Fixes: Lower ALL the timers please. Allow the player to at least have a tiny bit of control over the ship during the battle like being able to switch up the AI battle tactics... telling the AI to stay far away, ram enemy, circle enemy, or maneuver erratically to dodge hits should be simple enough. Multiplayer battles need to be more than a static screen and a random numbers generator... I want to see my big fleet flying into battle against the opponent's fleet and watch the battle as it happens. I also want to be able to customize the ships in my fleet. I know you probably can't have control during the battle but it would be nice to at least assign each ship a role for the battle like support, close attack, flankers, direct assault, etc... As I said, I want to like this game. I like watching my ship battle without having to be overly involved. With some fixes it could be lots of fun. Right now it is... meh.
Update after playing for a few days- so I'm revising my last review. After playing for a while I'm getting thoroughly hooked. There is a lot of room for customization as you progress. You control the battle by controlling your build and there are some pretty interesting choices in what you research and buy and equip. It feels very balanced and fun so far. It seems like laser builds are better overall so far... I didn't realize the battles you do are against other players and their ship builds. That is cool. The game is pretty generous in giving out its premium currency, but I couldn't resist and threw some money their way since it is providing me a good amount of fun. Anyway, there is a lot going for this game if you delve into it a little beyond the first few levels. I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe they need to give players a taste of what the later stages of gameplay are like when they first start out, so they know there is more to it than the what you have at level 1.
Pretty addictive! Building ship configurations is awesome, great and easy interface. The mix of weapons, defense and utility is creative and varied. Each level up unlocks either new ship shapes or additional build parts so there is a sense of progression. The ship shapes are interesting and each adds a different flavour. There's a few improvements that would be awesome but easier said than done! After a few goes you end up just watching in damage mode as your ship looks no different in game no matter how you build the ship. It's a real shame you can't see the individual components in game and also the full spec of your enemy too (unless I've missed it!). That would have been great so you can truly analyse each battle. I know you get to see a general look of the enemy before the battle and what build they are, but seeing full spec would be much more interesting. I'd like to analyse each battle a bit more as sometimes an enemy just destroys you easily even if several ship classes below you. I guess it's the seemingly random matchmaking and random way the computer plays out the battle. The biggest gripe is the timers. I understand why they are there, but they seem a bit too high and ramp up quickly when you unlock each better ship. It's over an hour already for Valkyrie for example. Having 3 battles and then having to wait is annoying, especially when the battles can sometimes last just 10 seconds. If each new ship has a longer timer, it will be ridiculous later in the game. This links back round to the randomness of the matchmaking and gameplay. If you wait an hour just to have 3 crushing defeats, then timers back up, that's quite frustrating. Conversely, if you happen to win those 3 matches, you feel awesome. But then timers appear again boo hoo! Not sure what the solution is. Maybe make it a paid game after the first few trial levels which removes all timers or something. Dunno what the perfect balance would be, but I hate the thought of spending money on in-game currency if that yields a temporary resource only. Just to be clear, you can negate the timers but they are not removed permanently. Add to the fact you need that currency to unlock new ship slots, it's clear this is the monetisation aspect of the game. Of course, the more slots you have the more ships you have, and the more you can play. However, the cost of that next slot ramps up very highly too - it's kinda puts you off dropping real cash on the game. Not tried Fleet Arena, as can't face using up the in game coin on buying ships that stay destroyed if they die. I may be missing out something awesome, and may get involved at a later stage. All that said, I'm just hooked still. I know I've gone on about the issues in more detail but it's because this game has so much potential to be truly awesome. Any kind of update would be very welcome though!
Hey everyone, I'm Ribatzki, the designer of Starside Arena. I'm happy to see some discussion going on here, and especially happy to see some of you have stuck with it Just popping by to let you know we are following the talk and taking note of your concerns and ideas. If there's any questions I could answer don't hesitate to post them. To address some of the most burning issues here, let's have a look at the ship repair timers and controllability: Earlier patches of the game had lower cooldowns, but this resulted in players either burning out while playing a large number of sessions daily, and it also led to some frustration from the experience of playing sub-optimally, if you were unable to log on every few minutes. The current timers are, of course, the result of what we believe to be the best for now, but rest assured we'll keep tracking performance and threads to gain better understanding of their impact and reception. Having control of your ship in battle is a more complex issue. We've experimented with some methods, but none have been satisfactory or in line with our design principles. One core philosophy for Starside has been to keep the game as low-tension and self-paced as possible. No fast reflexes or coordination required, just good ol' plain strategy. Another issue comes up when balancing the actual PvP battles. The player initiating the fight would have markedly more control over the result, skewing the game balance by vast amounts. When introducing controls that had only minor impact, they felt frustrating and inefficient. I confess it's a tough nut to crack and there may well be a good way to implement this, but I haven't figured it out yet. As it stands the nature of the game being passive and relaxed is still a priority for us, and it's unlikely to change. What I can reveal is that we are working on future updates that bring a bit more customization and targets for you players. Doing our best to make Starside Arena worth all your time Keep it cool! -Ribatzki
I'm enjoying Starside Arena as it is. I like the emphasis being purely on design and experimentation. There's a million twitch space shooters out there so it's refreshing to see this more considered approach. The timers are about right, but then I prefer playing this type of game in short bursts. The passive battles are great as this allows time to study how a design is faring, which components are vulnerable and where improvements can be made. It can be disconcerting not knowing what type of opponent my ship will be up against but I imagine real space battles are like that. Adds a bit of tension to an overall low tension experience. All I would ask is for more customisation options and more varied targets but it looks like the Epic Owls are already working on these.
Great to see some input from the Devs! Now I'm a little deeper into the game, I can say I'm still very much hooked. The build-only gameplay is very interesting and unique, and any victory you have is just the greatest feeling - especially after a long slog against an equally matched opponent. This game is my new addiction! Timers are still an interesting topic. I will say that now I have more slots unlocked it's a little more bearable - and I mean that it's good to have a decent chunk of time that it takes to play through 3 lives of 4 ships. The battles take longer as you get bigger and better ships. Of course, you still get a few easy wins (yay!) but equally & more often a few bad beatings (boo hoo!). Still unsure what the ideal solution would be, but I've noticed that the timers aren't quite true time - they count down a little faster than normal earth seconds. So actually this game is perfect in bursts. I must say that I've become a little numb when I lose, especially to seemingly much lower class ships. This is where seeing the full spec of the enemy would help - either during or after the battle, or at the very start of the battle when the ships so that tense floating stand off (love the pre-tension of that before all hell breaks loose!). So a full spec would be really good to see so you can truly gauge where you went wrong in your build for that match up. Other than this, my other general musings are... Would be good to understand matchmaking system, and also the workings behind the coins you earn for wins and losses. More graphical variety. Or at least maybe have the graphic view as standard and the damage/block view as permanent icons on the corner of the screen - so best of both worlds from current graphic assets. More customisation options - ship colour? Decals? A calling sign? Anything like that to give a bit more differentiation. It's your own fault for making the building and tinkering so satisfying - we all love to tinker don't we!!! A dynamic statistics section of the build screen. As well as showing power requirement vs consumption, we could see the total fire power strength, total defense, max range etc. And then as you add or swap components, it would update. Prob not explained very well, and maybe not helpful adding missile damage to laser damage to give an aggregate for example. Dunno, maybe total potential damage per second? Maybe some more variety in daily missions, or introduce achievements. Like I said, it's musings. Greedy musings, but only because I'm so into this game. Get it, drop a little coin to support the Devs, you won't be disappointed!
Greetings K-Dog, and thanks for the kind words and input! That's an interesting few topics you brought up, and I'd be happy to discuss. The session length and timers were indeed designed with consideration to higher level players having multiple ship slots: as the session cooldowns go up, you also get an increasingly long game out each time you rinse through your fleet. I'm not completely sure the timers as they currently stand have the best possible duration, but, as promised, I'm keeping an eye on it and tweaking if warranted. We've gone through the idea of seeing the enemy ship layout in detail at the studio more than a few times. While it does grant a better perspective for players seeking to enhance their own designs or weigh their chances against a particular enemy, they also reveal the only skill-related portion of the game: how to design a good ship. It's a two-edged sword. Seeing the enemy design would allow an experienced player to reroll his enemies knowing exactly who they'll win against, but it would add a layer of depth. I'll consider some compromise ideas on how we might work this feature out in the future. The matchmaking system searches for opponents in a given range around your own rating. However, if you lose a match, the search parameters dip down slightly to find a more likely victory for your next match. The game repeats this process up to a few times, and settles to normal search parameters when it finds a comfortable challenge level for you. The experience and Credit rewards for victories are fixed values depending on the ship you win, with slight variation depending on whether you destroyed their support ships (if they had any). The defeat rewards are a percentage of the full victory rewards that scales with the total number of modules you destroyed before going down. Hope this clears it out! I agree there is not enough room to distinguish your prized ship at this time. Our backlog has ideas such as custom colors, possibly even different skins, but as we have higher priorities development-wize at the moment, they will have to wait. But something better concerning customization is coming along, and we're working hard to squeeze it into the next patch The optimal scenario for the battle view would be to display both the health grid and the pretty graphics simultaneously. We've tried variants of this both in-game and on paper, but they fall short for several reasons. The devices with smaller screen sizes get really cluttered when you have a miniature health grid with both players' ships (including supports), making the data nearly unreadable. When fitted on a larger screen the clutter clears up a bit, but there is slight disconnection between the damage being taken or dealt and what's happening on the screen. It's surprisingly difficult to comprehend the orientation of the ships and the relative positions of where damage is being received when the stationary health displays do not rotate or move, compared to seeing the grid change color exactly where that pesky missile struck you. I'll consider looking into a novelty approach, but I can't promise anything. A power / DPS -breakdown on the build screen would be a treat for you thorough theorists! The current implementation is there for the plain reason of saving a maximal amount of screen space for building, and that can't be altered. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't consider having a drop-down menu / advanced stats tab on the screen that one could examine in detail when feeling like it. Daily missions are at their bare minimum at the moment. I once had this idea of having tiered missions, such as first winning 3 matches, then winning 5, then winning an outmatched battle and such, but the effort-to-value ratio on our particularly tight production schedule did not allow for it at that time. It may be revisited in the future, perhaps in the form of custom missions. Do note that this is all theory at the moment; we work priorities one patch at a time, and do our best to address the most burning issues first And to Stronsay - thanks for the positive feedback! We'll work hard to keep the game in your list of favorites. -Ribatzki
Thanks for the reply, really good engagement there! I look forward to whatever the future may bring for game!!!
On the subject of timers, I find it better burning out after a long gaming session than picking a game i can play for only a couple of minutes every 2-3 hours or so eventually forgetting about it.
Yes, thanks for that comprehensive reply Ribatzki. Very interesting and helpful to know what's happening under the hood together with the design concepts. I have to say also that the development blog on the Epic Owl website is the best I've seen, like reading a gripping novel in places, and this as much as gameplay makes me want to stay with Starside Arena. Very enlightening to learn about the whole process from starting the business, how the game evolved, the financing issues, and of cousre the recent verbal jousting with Warren Spector. I wish this open and friendly team every success.
I'm very happy to hear you've enjoyed our efforts! We'll strive to keep the discussion open and our process transparent in the future too. I apologize for slacking out on the blogs lately; the launch of the game has had us all quite busy, but I hope to return to that task once I've something meaningful enough to say I have relayed your wishes of success to our team, and we are all grateful for the gesture. Thank you! I read your message about the timers earlier, and I am sorry that they have proven a nuisance for you. I wish there was a solution that worked for everyone, but as it stands, this format has proven the best for our audience on average. I actually consider myself quite the gamer and know the feeling of wanting to pour hours into a great experience at once. Trust me, I know. The thing with strictly sessioned experiences on the mobile has its reasons. Having a lengthy sit on that tiny touchscreen can be quite taxing, it's a media that was never intended for long continuous use. Cutting the session time down and providing cooldowns helps keep the experience fresh, and one session never becomes a physical feat. I understand it's not the answer you'd like to hear, but I hope it helps illustrate the choices we've made. A lot of the decisions I have to make regarding the design are choosing between the lesser of two evils. I regret this solution was the wrong one for you, but I hope you'll enjoy the game when those pesky timers are over -Ribatzki
