Universal Phoenix HD - A Modern Arcade Shmup (by Firi Games)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by killercow, Aug 11, 2011.

  1. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
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    The Work-At-Home Guy
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    There are times where i can only play in short bursts, and the new ship sounds perfect for that.

    Got a timeframe as to when we can expect to play the new ship?
     
  2. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Nov 13, 2009
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    Oh, and with 'shortest' I don't mean you get less far progression wise :) The ship has very high potential for the highest possible score, but it will not be by my hand! The mechanics will be a bit more complicated/deep than the other ships, but this will simply provide a longer learning curve for teh hardcore (typo intended ;) )

    Since timeframes never work out I will refrain from naming an exact date. The update contains a new ship and a slight rework in how the Leaderboards are presented. I hope we can submit it in June.
     
  3. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Phoenix HD 2.1: Meet the Phantom

    Hey guys, I'm not really a double post kinda guy, but sometimes there's no other way :) Anyway, we have finalised the graphics and gameplay for the new ship! We've sent the ship description out for translation, so we're in the final phase before we're able to submit it! There are many fixes and optimisations, but I only want to discuss the new ship in this post.

    Guys, meet the Phantom!

    Sounds cool no? This ship has, again, more mechanics than any of the ships before it. The gameplay is very different and very cool! Here we go.

    • The ship is destroyed in 1-hit. No health. You will learn to play much more careful, my average scores have gone up for all ships since I started playing with the Phantom :) Holding a pick-up still cancels a killing blow, so this is more important now.
    • The Phantom does much more damage than the other ships, so encounters are generally shorter. The weapons are pretty focussed as well, so you have the ability to snipe down turrets a bit better.

    Easy right? Let's carry on.

    • When the screen is released, Ghost Mode is activated. In Ghost Mode, the screen turns black & white, time slows down the Phantom stops shooting and becomes invulnerable! Very convenient for those 'impossible' situations :) Just put down your finger to take back control and continue destroying stuff.
    • Ghost Mode is limited to the amount of Ghost Energy you currently have. We have replaced the health bar with a blue bar that shows your current amount of Ghost Energy. Collecting power particles that used to give you health will now give you Ghost Energy. A full bar will give you 3 full seconds of Ghost Mode.

    Ghost Mode, cool huh? That's just the basics, now for the mechanics that deepen the gameplay :)

    • When you have a full bar of Ghost Energy you go into Overdrive, getting a significant damage boost. How do you know this is active? Don't worry, you'll see when it is :) (It's not active on the screenshot below). You'll want to be in Overdrive as much as possible, enemies don't know what hit them! For comparison, it's about as strong as the 2nd stage of the Nightfury (out of its 3 levels)
    • You'll definitely have to use your Ghost Energy and generally you can use it to avoid a couple of bullets here and there. Since you can't move in Ghost Mode though it is possible that you get pinned down in a giant pattern where bullets are all over your ship. Fear not, when you completely drain your Ghost Energy an EMP is automatically triggered as a last resort to cancel the bullets around you! This EMP is only triggered when you completely drain your Ghost Energy, so think carefully about going out of Ghost Mode or staying in till the end. On top of that, the more Ghost Energy you use, the bigger the EMP! Depleting a full Ghost Energy bar will cancel all enemy bullets on screen! Depleting a small Ghost Energy bar will only cancel the bullets close to your ship. So to summarise: The more Ghost Energy you use to completely deplete your Ghost Energy bar, the bigger the radius for your bullet cancelling EMP.

    Still with me? It's a lot to take in, but the best thing is, you don't need to know this information at all! When you're playing with the Phantom, you will be confronted with these situations and you will instinctively know what's going on! Too much energy? You get extra damage. Think you're stuck in a big pattern? An EMP will save you. The ship plays incredibly natural, just remember, when in doubt, release the screen! :)

    Post any questions this sparked and let me know what you think!

    Below you'll find a screenshot of the Phantom in detail and an in-game iPad screenshot of the Phantom in action. (note the Ghost Energy bar is still green, we hadn't changed it to blue yet :) )

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  4. syntheticvoid

    syntheticvoid Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2010
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    Musician & factory worker.
    a[V-O-I-D]
    Holy shit! Can I say that? I'm completely blown away by the description, not to mention the screen and ship design -

    I can not freak'n wait for this update! You guys rock! This is definitely a prime example of how to perfectly utilize Apple's update feature. I'm actually blown away that more developers don't do this exact thing (create a game the way they want to, and keep adding more content for years via IAP).

    Thank you Firi!
     
  5. Canthar

    Canthar Well-Known Member

    Jul 18, 2012
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    Waiting....impatiently for this!
     
  6. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Also: it moves :)

    [​IMG]
     
  7. syntheticvoid

    syntheticvoid Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2010
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    Musician & factory worker.
    a[V-O-I-D]
    :eek::eek::eek:
     
  8. SumoSplash

    SumoSplash Well-Known Member

    Sep 27, 2011
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    Playing iOS games, duh.
    Pennsylvania, U.S.
    And this is why Phoenix HD is The Benchmark.
     
  9. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
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    The Work-At-Home Guy
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    It is... Teh SHMUP.
     
  10. SumoSplash

    SumoSplash Well-Known Member

    Sep 27, 2011
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    Playing iOS games, duh.
    Pennsylvania, U.S.
    #910 SumoSplash, May 23, 2013
    Last edited: May 23, 2013
    I could play Phoenix HD from now until the end of time with a new ship added every six months. Each addition is a unique, glorious chapter that becomes part of a book that I never tire of reading.

    This new ship looks like a ravenous beatle-spider that would attack and gnaw the enemy ships. Easily the most stylish look yet, not to mention that it actually moves. The focused attack in that screen shot looks to be right up my alley, although I'm concerned that the time slowing will be too similar to the Trinity. Looking forward to this a lot.
     
  11. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Nov 13, 2009
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    #911 Selachii, May 23, 2013
    Last edited: May 23, 2013
    Hah, awesome to see you guys are looking forward to it and thanks for your kind words!

    The transformation doesn't loop/flap like this animated gif does of course. It folds in when entering Ghost Mode and folds out when returning to normal firing mode. The frames are the actual frames from the game (converted to .GIF).

    Don't worry about the slowing of time similarities with the Trinity. Slowing down time is a support mechanic here that creates some extra room for the player to make difficult decisions in Ghost Mode.

    ps:
    Gah, I wish I could reach this thread from the TouchArcade App, but "Phoenix HD" is linked to the classic Phoenix (SD) thread ... -_- Old fashioned bookmarks it is
     
  12. SumoSplash

    SumoSplash Well-Known Member

    Sep 27, 2011
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    Playing iOS games, duh.
    Pennsylvania, U.S.
    Ok cool. I'm sure the overlap in concept was done tastefully. I rarely question your artistic direction, that's for darn sure.

    I don't think I even want to know the release for this update. I want it to just pop up on my phone, like a little present. I shouldn't come back here until it's out. I'm going to tease myself.

    Ok. Bye :p
     
  13. FBI Light Rock

    FBI Light Rock Well-Known Member

    Apr 2, 2013
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    Sorry! Late for the party!

    Hello guys! I recently joined TouchArcade (Some time ago), but had this game on my iTouch a long ago. Awesome game really. Looking for the best shoot-em-up classic and THIS IS DEFINITELY THE ONE!!! :D:D:D

    Bought the special offer (All 4 additional ships with bonus coins) and loved it! My personal favourite ship is definitely the newest Trinity. Had my best on it too, ~4.5 million. 2 million on Corsair before. Did the worst on Shogun, only 1 million. Shogun's UNIQUE mechanics doesn't click with me BUT that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it.:) Not asking for expert tips, I'm a pretty casual player, don't play it often. (Sorry :(, got many other great iOS games to play too)

    So, some suggestions since there's still some time (hopefully) to make some changes. Can my ships during the game itself look sharper and more detailed on my iPod Touch 4G retina display? I know native resolution isn't supported for iTouch 4G but it's really one of the main focus during gameplay, and I can't quite stand a pretty ugly ship.:p I don't mind the rest being not that detailed. Also, like some suggested, can the hit circle be returned, and a volume slider be added for both music and sound FX? Last thing, probably inspiration from uh, Plague Inc ( And a cool suggestion I read around here before), but a cheat mode with ability to select any amount of power-ups at no coin cost, though the only catch is you are not given ANY score at all.

    One last thing, does this game save my scores locally? Can't find a local in-built high score board inside this game app, but this game claims to have done saved my high score. Didn't buy online pass (I'm not a guy who likes competition online). Any reason why the game doesn't want to save locally without buying online pass?

    Overall still an awesome game and look forward to the upcoming update adding the Phantom! Definitely would buy it!
     
  14. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Nov 13, 2009
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    @FBI_Light_Rock: Welcome and thanks for your kind words, I'm glad you like our game :)

    Phoenix HD is pushing the performance of devices, displaying thousands of animated particles, enemies and bullets at 60fps. The older devices have to run at a lower resolution to keep up and it is not possible to increase the resolution for 1 asset, like the player ship. The whole game simply runs at a lower resolution.

    Update 2.1 will not add the old hit circle setting but we did try to tweaks the appearance of the hit circle. The blue circle that is displayed when you are low health is now always visible. We have also added a tracer to the cockpit, so there's always a blue line emphasising the location of the hit circle when you move. To get an impression, it looks like the tracer behind the drones, but blue and thinner.

    The Online Pass was removed with update 2.0 They are now free for everyone :) As soon as you play the game with an internet connection your scores are uploaded to our Leaderboards. I can recommend enabling Location Services if you haven't, it's really cool to compete locally. You can view your scores if you go to "Your Scores" in the Phoenix HD main menu.
     
  15. FBI Light Rock

    FBI Light Rock Well-Known Member

    Apr 2, 2013
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    Alright, fair enough, I did actually thought it wasn't possible since increasing the resolution of the ship inevitably means increasing the rest as well, so it'll put too much pixels to process at once, slowing the game performance.

    That's cool, thanks, it'll see how it works for me when update v2.1 arrives. :)

    Going to "Your High Scores" at the main menu gave this error: "firi_json_request_authorization_failed". What gives man? Being on an iTouch, I'm not on WiFi nor Location Services (To save battery) during any of these times. Would retrieving the high scores via WiFi/Location Services just once stop the error?
     
  16. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Nov 13, 2009
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    Aha, please post your User Identifier, I can check what's going on. You can find it in your iOS device settings and scroll down to Phoenix HD. It's a short case-sensitive string that is auto-generated. There's nothing secret about this identifier so you can just post it here with no problem :)
     
  17. FBI Light Rock

    FBI Light Rock Well-Known Member

    Apr 2, 2013
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    User Identifier

    Hi Selachii, my user identifier is AAJ. Do help me check what's going on in this identifier if you can (I understand you can be quite busy so no hurries! :))! Thanks for the help.
     
  18. SumoSplash

    SumoSplash Well-Known Member

    Sep 27, 2011
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    Playing iOS games, duh.
    Pennsylvania, U.S.
    Busy submitting the Phantom update to Apple ;)
     
  19. Selachii

    Selachii Well-Known Member
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    Nov 13, 2009
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    Thanks! Your account looks fine from here. Running the game with wi-fi should solve this for you. All your scores will be submitted and you should be able to access them via "Your Scores" (this might take some time depending on how many scores you have stored locally). You will need an internet connection each time you want to see your scores. Only scores submitted to our Leaderboards are displayed.

    Location Services are only necessary when setting scores (while playing the game), there's no point to enable them after playing. We do recommend it for the best experience, but if you need the battery life, our IP-lookup is a nice alternative. When you have Location Services disabled, but have an active internet connection, Phoenix HD will automatically try to get your location using IP lookup. The result varies per country/carrier/internet provider, but is better than nothing :)

    Update 2.1 is almost ready for submission to Apple, should happen this week. *crosses fingers*
     
  20. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
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    The Work-At-Home Guy
    Philippines
    Omg omg omg omg omg omg omg!

    Er... that sounded like Sasha Grey in one of her, well, movies.
     

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