Universal Midnight Star (By Industrial Toys)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by redribbon, Jul 2, 2014.

  1. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    Mar 24, 2012
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    The HUD

    I've gotten some questions about the basics of the HUD in the game and what everything means, so I posted explanations here.

    Here's the image along with explanations of each element:

    [​IMG]

    Score + Current Stars - Behind the score you will notice 3 faint stars. As you hit point thresholds in an Encounter, these stars will light up.

    Time Bonus - The longer you take to blow through an Encounter, the less point bonus you get at the end (minimum is 0).

    Time - The amount of time you've spent in that Encounter.

    Health Meter - A measure of how many hit points you have left. If the meter goes all the way down, you're dead.

    Pause Game - Press to pause the game.

    Shield Meter - When you hold two fingers down and deploy the Shield, this meter takes the damage instead of your Health. Remember to catch incoming projectiles in the area around your fingers to let your Shield take less damage.

    Selected Weapon - The weapon you are currently using.

    Backup Weapon - The other weapon you have loaded out for this Encounter. Swiper horizontally on the guns to switch weapons.

    Ammo - The number of bullets or other projectiles you have left in that magazine. Tap the Selected Weapon to perform a Manual Reload (which is WAY faster that a dry-fire Automatic Reload).

    Killing Sprees - This number increments after every 5 kills you make without taking any damage. It leads to major score bonuses.

    Multikills - From Double Kill all the way up to Killz0rz (for 10 kills), this number increments for every kill you make with less than 3 seconds between each.

    Attack Notification - When an enemy is about to attack, you will see an exclamation mark above their head (or a fist if they're rushing in to melee you)

    Threat Indicator - These buttons tell you how many enemies are to your left or right. If the buttons turns red, an attack from an offscreen enemy is imminent. Tapping the buttons controls the camera.

    Mini-Map - This shows you where enemies are in proximity to you.

    Hyper - This button deploys your Hyper power. During its cooldown, you will see the blue border fill up. When it is full, the power is ready to be deployed again.

    ---

    If anything needs more explanation, let me know, and I'll update. Hope you guys that are in Ireland or the Philippines are having fun with the game. We submitted our 1st update to the game (with tons of optimizations and fixes) today. Should be live soon...
     
  2. SirHanet

    SirHanet Well-Known Member

    Aug 5, 2013
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    Will the game be able to run ona iPod Touch 3G 32GB that runs IOS 5.1.1?
     
  3. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    Aww I can't be bothered making an Irish account I'm in the UK so thought it might be here but sadly not.
     
  4. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
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    Mar 24, 2012
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    No, sorry. iOS 6+
     
  5. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    Mar 24, 2012
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    Not too long, ste86uk. We're doing rapid iterations of the game in the coming weeks and then we'll go live across everywhere. In the meantime, there's a decent amount of gameplay getting recorded over on the Twitch stream here.
     
  6. amusing Grace

    amusing Grace Well-Known Member

    Dec 23, 2008
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    Berlin, Germany
    #26 amusing Grace, Jan 15, 2015
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2015
    Is this now out of soft launch?
    Says in game now that there is an update, but it's not available in the German store.

    EDIT: and it´s not available in the NZ store where it soft launched, either.
    Bummed, that this silly update screen doesn´t let me play now while i have time.
     
  7. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
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    Mar 24, 2012
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    That's super weird, you should be able to see it in the New Zealand store. We have a bunch of players in New Zealand playing now. Let me know if you were able to get it from that store.

    As far as the other question about soft launch-- we are still in it! But we're getting very close to global, so if you're using the German Store, it won't be too long now...
     
  8. amusing Grace

    amusing Grace Well-Known Member

    Dec 23, 2008
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    #28 amusing Grace, Jan 17, 2015
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2015
    Sorry for the confusion.
    I logged into the NZ store on my iPad instead of iTunes and saw the update.
    When checking before the update note and the release date looked like i had that version already.
    Update runs fine so far and the UI for the energy system is much clearer. Energy seems to be recharging more generously, too.
     
  9. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
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    Mar 24, 2012
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    Oh, great. And thanks for the energy feedback-- we've been tweaking that throughout the soft launch. Are you playing in the tournament?
     
  10. amusing Grace

    amusing Grace Well-Known Member

    Dec 23, 2008
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    I had a go at Mission Stormy Leopard earlier today, i guess that's part of the tournament.
    Right now playing one level uses almost all my energy, don't know if there is a way to conserve more.
    I already have four guns, so i could switch the guns and just recharge the rest. But anyway, a bit more info how energy depletes would be appreciated. As it is five bars look like five games but equal around one, then roughly wait an hour. ( The before mentioned generiosity seems like a one time glitch).

    I enjoy it nevertheless, clever and very engaging take on on-rails shooting galeries. Just finished the first chapter today, any idea how long it will take for episode two to surface?
     
  11. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

    Jun 28, 2011
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    Yeah I'm back and forth with the energy. It seems you get it often but you still need to stock pile. One mission takes pretty much all the energy at the stages I play. I also noticed you have to refill everything to continue a stage if you run out mid way. One bothersome part is that I rarely use the Super skills but that gets drained constantly and I have to charge that even though I don't use it.
     
  12. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    Mar 24, 2012
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    Actually, you can recharge individual items by x-ing out of the Recharge All. Let me know if you have any difficulty with that, as it might be a way for us to make the UI experience better.

    As far as the Hypers-- I would encourage you to experiment with Levitate. Taking down all the enemies levitated before they are released is one of the big ways to maximize score and achieve more. There's a rundown on how/why here.
     
  13. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

    Jun 28, 2011
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    Hi, thanks for the reply! I tried but it seems you can't continue without recharging everything.

    I do think you should change it so items you don't use don't lose energy. For instance I don't use my 2nd weapon or my skills aside from the shield but them I'm charged for using them. Then that makes it even more expensive to continue a game since I have to pay energy for their exhaustion.

    Anyhow, the final countdown event was fun!

    I'm really bummed though, I only hit 4th place. I was hoping that top 5 get prizes :( I screwed up my 3rd chance :\
     
  14. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
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    Mar 24, 2012
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    Great, glad you liked it! You'll get the prize next time ;). And it was really a soft launch test-- there will be many more live events for you to take part in, so stay tuned!

    We'll be hosting a live tourney the first week of the global launch of the game, and we'll have rolling tourneys a couple times a week (and players can create their own whenever they like with or without an Element prize).
     
  15. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

    Jun 28, 2011
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    I think I only got lucky this time since it's a soft launch. Once it's world wide it'll be impossible... I'm not THAT good :eek:

    I basically treated today's final round as my last chance. I don't think I've hit top 3 in any big game on the iOS. lol.

    Thanks for making an awesome game. Even though I lost I still enjoyed myself :)
     
  16. thewzrd

    thewzrd Well-Known Member
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    Mar 24, 2012
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    Haha, me neither. But glad you hit top 10 on it-- you'll always have that. I'm going to memorialize all tourneys in the forums as we go forward, so your place in history is set!

    Big announcement tomorrow, Law. Stay tuned-- everything is about to happen...
     
  17. iPlayApps

    iPlayApps Active Member

    Mar 18, 2010
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    German indie developer
    A new Gameplay Video of the first 20 minutes of Midnight Star
     
  18. Amenbrother

    Amenbrother Well-Known Member

    Jun 24, 2011
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    Download not working here in US.
     
  19. DonnyDJ76

    DonnyDJ76 Well-Known Member

    Nov 1, 2011
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    Same here. This sucks. Hopefully the situation will be fixed by tomorrow.
     
  20. Silver Light Storm

    Mar 3, 2014
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    Download not working either.
     

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