Hi there folks, pleasure to make your acquaintance! Dark Star is a twitchy arcade mashup of ideas drawing inspiration from things like Space Harrier, Afterburner and Canabalt. Bullet points! * Fancy 3D * Old school arcade challenge (without the need for loose change) * Explosions! * Simple controls * Barrel-rolls * Shoot down enemy ships, clear space junk, dodge missiles and take on giant battle cruisers * More explosions! Here's some gameplay clips from the latest build (set against inappropriately epic music): Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Screenshots? Boom, we have you covered! We've just about got to the Alpha phase of the project (content complete) and are starting to look for folks that might be interested in joining the Beta test. If this looks like the sort of game you'd like to play, you can sign up at http://www.thatwonderfullemon.co/updates/dark-star-beta-test/. I'd love to hear from you if you've got any feedback, questions or recipes for good pizza bases. I'll be keeping this thread up to date as we inch ourselves ever closer to a release date, so until then, be good! A.
Very pretty ... like the art style. Gameplay is similar to Star Fox or whatever the old Nintendo game was called?
Any game that has the old Star Wars Death Star arcade run as part of its gameplay gets an instabuy from me lol Bring it on! I love those old arcade games. I grew up playing them. This is definitely my kind of game! I just read about the beta invite. Hell yeah sign me up. I have extensive alpha and beta testing experience and have no issues signing an NDA. I filled out the form on the website. I promise you I'll test the crap out of this one lol Billy
@WaveLightGames, Thanks! Gameplay wise I'm not sure how close of a match it would be to Star Fox (we were a Sega household when I was a kid) - although looking at some youtube vids I think it does look similar. @LordShad0wz, Ah yes, the good ol' Death Star (fun fact, a previous job had me working on a game where I got to actually model out the post explosion Death Star, which was ace. That project never was finished / released so I'm probably just working out some pent up emotions with this game). I myself love ol' arcade style games and the sort that came after them (light gun shooters, Res / Panzer Dragoon style ones, etc). Also, don't worry about NDA's or contracts for the upcoming test, personally I'm not a fan of them, especially in later level tests, as they do restrict you in how you may naturally use the application. @dreadnok You legend, thanks As to the up-coming Beta test, I'll probably leave sign up open over the weekend and will reachout to let folks know whats next early next week. I'm stoked to see all the interest so far! You all are awesome!
The first time I was allowed to go out by myself I was given $30. I went to the arcade near my home and saw this Star Wars game that you sit in. It was the trench run and tie fighter combat game! I blew the entire $30 on that game that day. I couldn't stop playing. I didn't even eat or drink lol. I wish they would have brought that game into current gen. So when I saw your game I was like hell yeah. Lol Billy
Mind blown! Some fine folks posted this on the front page! http://toucharcade.com/2015/08/13/dark-star-trailer/ ... although I'll have you know I grew up with a Mega Drive
This looks great! Will definitely pick this up when it's out. Re: Pizza bases...One of the tricks to good pizza dough is pastry flour and a little semolina flour too.
@cirrus Thanks! Also on bases, interesting point, I'll have to look into this. Recently my experiments with spelt have not been too successful. A quick mention of controls (noticed a comment on the article about this): - Touch / Drag / Swipe to move your ship - Tap to choose targets (auto fire will pick them off) - Double tap the side of the screen to barrel roll (through time and space) in that direction. - Tap missile release button for explosions Also the plan is for Dark Star to have a single price point (no IAP, ad's or otherwise) which will creep up as more levels, ships, enemies and mechanics are added. So obviously, if you buy it early, all additional content will be yours, because, well you're awesome and brought it early!
I like that idea! I have always been fond of the try-before-you-buy pay model. I can't wait to get my grubby little paws on this! Looks absolutely incredible!
Hey folks, just a quick reminder to let you know the Dark Star beta is closing at about 6pm (BST). Still a few hours to sign up if you fancy taking a spaceship for a spin! http://www.thatwonderfullemon.co/updates/dark-star-beta-test/ Response so far has been absolutely astounding - thank you all so much for the interest!
Aaaaaand the sign up is closed! Wow... I honestly can not believe how many folks signed up, thank you all for the interest! Please bare with me while I sort out the applications - I'll be sending out an email to all applicants in the next day or two with additional details about the beta and where we go from here. @Exact-Psience - players will be picked based on their hardware group (making sure people are testing the game on different devices) and a random draw within those groups. Folks that don't get into the first round may be called up for the second so don't despair if you are not in the first draft!
FYI - first round of beta invites have been sent out! I'm really looking forward to seeing the stats and hearing peoples thoughts. If you didn't get in this round, don't worry as there will probably be another round or two coming up.
Due to this post above, the testers should be allowed to post impressions here. Quite a while since beta started (i didn't make it) but not one post. Hmm...so bad, or what i hope, no imps allowed here, finally?
Hey there, sorry you missed the draft for the first batch of tests. The folks that were kind enough to help out are completely free to post thoughts, vids, impressions, etc - no restrictions what so ever. Although I'm not sure anyone did much publicly. The reason perhaps no one has posted was the initial draft of players was quite small (so I could properly work with people as they tested). I'm sure only a few people that saw the beta coverage are active posters. Generally though feedback was an interesting mixed bag. Some people hated some areas of the game where as others quite liked the same areas. Its made it quite difficult to please everyone! However a lot of the negative comments were due to assumptions on how the player expected the game to run. Thus one of the main take aways for me was that the messaging needed to be greatly improved to help clear up players assumptions about the mechanics. Unfortunately I've just moved and have suffered through mobile internet for the past three weeks. Once in back on full fat broadband I'll drop some stats, more info about the test and how the project is coming. Thanks for the interest in the project Q! A.
Thanks for your quick and interesting response, Andrew. I won't watch the video again (sort of spoiling to me, lol), but from my fond memories, i was thinking of a similar handling (relative touch) as in Raystorm (by Taito). Move the crosshair over the foes, lock on and blast them into oblivion, plus some additional classic gatling shooting from the spaceship... We'll see...
On mobile the controls are a touch to move, tap to lock on and shoot sort of thing. Quite a bit of thought has gone into making them as simple as possible. PC rocks a simple keyboard / mouse affair. If you boil Dark Star down to the simplest elements, the game mechanics challenge your moment to moment decision making skills (i.e. the risk vs reward of positioning, survival, destroying enemies, mission targets and combo gain / retention) in the way old arcade games used to... at least they way they challenged me!
Drum roll please...... 19th of November! Yes, after much nail biting Dark Star has passed QA and will be out next Thursday! Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel soon... I can sleep
Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone on the boards, who watched the stream and the Touch Arcade community in general. DS launches in a few hours (I'm feeling the butterflys!) so I thought I'd post a few screenshots to close up the thread. See ya'll on the otherside!
