When I saw the screenshots, I thought I had played it before, but it turns out I hadn't. I just played the first three missions. I'm not usually a fan of Gameloft games, but this one is pretty great. Thanks a lot for pointing it out! It's funny: when I started working on "Ace Ferrara", I had the barrel roll on horizontal swipe and a U-turn on vertical swipe as well (the U-turn probably won't be in the final game, though). I didn't even know about the Acrocanthosaurus... That is one bulky fellow!
But yes Star Battalion is one Gameloft game I have a great amount of respect for. A good game to serve as a basis for the feel of the gane
*Major* visual changes this week. I re-did all shaders and light ramps and added color grading to the game. The result looks a whole lot warmer and more cartoony. I've updated the screenshots on page one with the new look! Here's a quick before/after comparison: Otherwise the game is also progressing well. I expect the iOS version to be ready in about three to four months.
I spent most of the past weeks on things like iPad support, but I also built a dinosaur cruiser: And here's the big bad bird unlit in Blender3D, alongside a freighter:
Not quite. I'm trying to come up with class names for every ship, that are either puns on their type of dinosaur, or something badass from its anatomy. Example: "Terrordactyls" for the pterodactyl-flown light fighters, or "Thagomizer" for the cruisers which are flown by stegosauruses (the "thagomizer" is the spikey tail of a stegosaurus). The freighters are flown by brontosauruses or europasauruses. The best I could come up with so far is "Sauropod", which sounds kinda freightery and is the group name for these kinds of dinos. If you can think of anything better and it fits with the other names, I'd be happy to put it in!
Three horns don't play with long necks. Maybe sauroposiedans. The spelling maybe a but off. Looks great anyhow.
Sauroposeidons (; But yeah if not Long Necks then Sauropods because the "pod" part makes them sound like they carry stuff. Which is what freighters do
I'll keep "Long Necks" in mind and see how it fits together with the other names! Thanks! I've taken another look at the Wikipedia page for "Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus", but I'm not sure how they aren't real dinos... Are you referring to the name "Brontosaurus" not being used in the scientific community, or is there something else that I missed?
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795/forget-extinct-the-brontosaurus-never-even-existed This article explains it pretty well
Update! The game is now about 90% complete (which means it's still 2-3 months out), so I thought I'd film one of the early missions played on an iPad, to show how the controls work: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel After a dinosaur battle group was discovered hyperjumping through a secret Terran system, Sneaky Jacques and the interns escort a scientific shuttle investigating the enemy's jump trace.
I recorded another video, this one is of a dialogue scene. There's one of these after each mission, the example here being from very early in the game: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Graphics, music, and lasers seem super spot on, as well as the ship designs (there was a big cruiser you dock on at the end that I loved). And I loved the second just as much! Character portraits are sleek and cartoony, and haha, the dialogue was genuinely funny (made me chuckle once or twice). Keep up the awesome work!
It's been a long time since I've posted any progress here, mostly because I've been in crunch mode, trying to finish the game. The great news is that development is now pretty much complete, and the iOS version will come out in a few weeks. I've been spending the past weeks adding some final polish, including animated backgrounds on high gfx settings (iPhone 5 and up). Some animated GIFs: And here's a couple of current screenshots:
