Hi everyone, I just submitted Astral to the App Store today, so hopefully you'll be able to play it this month. Since I visit Touch Arcade regularly, I figured I'd announce it here first. Here's the App Store description: Some screenshots: Gameplay trailer: If you've played the Pacifism mode in Geometry Wars 2, you'll be familiar with the gameplay immediately, although there are some differences. As a rule, I don't like knockoffs, and this is as close to a knockoff as I'll ever make again. It actually started off as a programming exercise and a way for me to play Pacifism on the go, but as I experimented with the visuals I felt it turned into something interesting in its own right.
Glad you guys are digging the style! I'm a big fan of Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Kenta Cho, and I'm just getting my feet wet experimenting with abstract graphics. Especially abstract graphics affected by the music. Hopefully the first of many!
Tripping the light fantastic! I am really looking forward to this! Is there any significance to the 'cloud' turning green?
It's based on the peak power level of the music. The 'cloud' is made up of a mixture of red and green colors. When the music is loud, it gives them more red and less green (making for a reddish-orange), and when it's quieter, it gives them more green and less red. When the music goes quiet, I also turn down all the blue connecting the strings, making it look like they've "gone dark". That gives the cloud a glow-in-the-dark effect. It's also harder to figure out where the strings really are once they've gone dark, so the music (briefly) affects the gameplay, too.
Loved the video - that little ship is quite repsonsive, and you are pretty darn good... Question that I have is that you avatar for the ship is controlled by your finger it appeared, so I am just wondering if the play area is small? Or does it take up most of the screen? I don't see as well as I used to so if the little ship is small, it might be difficult to see? Otherwise it looks like quite the engaging experience..
Thanks! The play area is the same size as the screen, but it scrolls slightly as you move around so your thumb doesn't block the view. If the ship turns out too small for you to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do to make it more visible. It's small on purpose so you can squeeze through really narrow gaps between swarms.
Thanks, will do. The video looked like it had some magnification - not sure on that, but you were making some incredibly deft movements. This one should be really fun.
loved the music, the game was definitely psychedelic and cool looking, but really really tough...lol, not sure if I can be that dextrous was there significance to you going back and gathering all those dots after a swarm was killed?
The controls are actually really precise, and the tail helps out a lot too. I've had a LOT of practice, but if you can play PewPew or Isotope just fine, you'll be making deft maneuvers in no time. Yup, the dots increase your score multiplier. Every square in a swarm counts for ten points, multiplied by however many dots you've collected.
This looks excellent. I've played the pacifism mode in GW2 and this looks much more engaging and I can't wait to play it.