Dear TA community, my name is Sebastian, I’m from Leipzig, Germany and I make iOS games since 2008. Today I want to talk about my new game: Comblosion. Comblosion is a (touch-)arcade game about connecting and collecting. It’s fast. It’s hard. It’s endless and every time different. You have to play quickly, tactical and precise. You connect dots by drawing lines with your finger. Crossing previously drawn lines outside of the dots is forbidden. But time is running and you only start with a few seconds. After each connection you get an additional second and the next dot appears. It gets harder with each connection and there is no end. Your only hope are random items like time, teleporter, multiplier and so on. But it’s best to see Comblosion in motion: I’m planning to release Comblosion exclusively for iOS later this summer as a premium game without any in-app-currency, timers or ads. The game itself is almost done - there are mainly two things left: 1. The nearly impossible task to promote a mobile game as a small independent developer 2. Random items make the game unpredictable and fun with a great variety of game lengths. Now I have to find the right balance between too-hard and more-accessible. Thats all for now - what do you think? Sebastian CONTACT sebastian at tapjourney dot com COMBLOSION • fast, hard, endless • exclusively for iPhone and iPad • iOS 7.0+ • cool Game Center integration • localized in 10 languages • price: $1.99, no IAP, no ads • release: July 14th 2016 • http://www.comblosion.com
Allow me to add a somewhat longer gameplay video. A typical game in Comblosion is rather short (less than a minute - or only seconds if you start playing). Since there is no end it it also possible to achieve very long plays and scores (if you are really god together with a bit of luck). Here is a 7 minute gameplay video I made in a lucky moment with a very high score: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel But don't think you will come so far easily
I like the simple and smooth visuals especially when you collect this blue-booster-thing. But the game itself doesn't look that hard.
Thanks for your response. Blue-booster-thing sounds cool . It is a kind of a teleporter item: When you collect it, it auto-jumps to the next 10 dots giving you more time and all new items on the way. And if this includes a new teleporter, it can go quite a while I have also noticed, that Comblosion looks quite easy on screenshots or when you watch it on video. But it feels completely different, when you actually play it and try to find your way through ever increasing lines and obstacles without touching anything: You have to play fast, strategic and accurate at once. Imagine you only have 2 seconds left and every connection only gives you 1 additional second. It gets harder with each connection and your only hope are the next items with a teleporter, more time or a jump to the next stage
Today I intensively played Comblosion to make screenshots for the App Store. Or should I say, I tried? Now I fear my dreams this night will look like this:
Glad you like it! As I wrote in my first post, Comblosion will be a premium game without IAP or ads. I originally thought about making Comblosion a Free2Play game, because it will be more fun the more people play it and also less and less people are willing to pay upfront for a game. Then during development I mainly focused on the game itself and ended up with a really fun game. Now I dont want to include IAPs, ads and analytics because in my eyes this would ruin the experience. This is why Comblosion will be a premium game and I cross my fingers that it works
Sorry my fault, did not read everything I saw endless+arcade and instanly thought it will have some game-over--buy-some-gems-or-watch-a-boring-ad-to-continue feature. Good luck with your decision, you can count on me, when it is available
Nothing to buy and nothing to watch But to be honest Comblosion will have a kind of continue-playing feature: Rockets. After you have lost you have 5 seconds to decide if you want to use one (if you have any). Then the game auto-jumps to the next 10 dots giving you enough time and mostly a fresh stage to continue playing afterwards. But they can only be collected during gameplay (like the other items as time, multiplier and so on). Or you can save them up and use up to 7 at once at the beginning of a new game for a crazy initial ride and lots of points to start with if you are lucky. The rockets give more depth and make the game more much more exciting. Since I made a lot of screenshots last week, I can show you how it looks like: The last screenshot also shows a special game-center feature: If you like the game can automatically display a scrollable view of your friends and other players on top of the start screen to show you at a glance how good or bad you really are
Thanks! The sound design for Comblosion was an inspiring process. I worked with Martin Straka, who also did the much acclaimed soundtrack for Spirits (Trailer on YouTube). There are only sound effects without additional music in the game. Music didnt work very well or was disturbing especially in tricky situations where you have to play very concentrated. Now the connection sounds consist of 10 tones in different pitches, which fit together harmoniously in every variation. When you connect two dots one random tone is played. In the result you create your own random melody which always sounds good and fits perfectly your speed and rhythm.
Summer 2016 Its done - I just submitted Comblosion to Apple And Comblosion now has a release date: June 15th 2016. EDIT: release delayed to later this Summer! Now there are two (one) reasons for me to celebrate on that day: - (my new game will finally be released) - its my 40th birthday I also made a small website: http://www.comblosion.com Here are my screenshots for the App Store:
Promo Codes Good news: Comblosion has been approved by Apple and is now ready to start! Time to share some promo codes to check out Comblosion for FREE and before the official release on June 15th ARAKMFF43LWT XF9XTEWPLYF6 4HY9K3KNHL36 YFRW3X4JNPN3 636MLW3NAMTF 3KK9A4WT9AAK 3HPRXNPYLYRN 6ATJHHMA93WT RWHLEEPTAN9P 6TRMRXPMH7HW Have fun with the game and let me know what you think! (and please let others know which code you have used)
Interesting game idea! Great visuals and animation effects. It looks to me like you have to be pretty precise at times while drawing those lines... do you find that it's a lot harder on small screens, or are you mainly targeting iPad?
feedback Thanks for the promo code. I think this is a great game! Let me share my feedback on difficulty, from a first-timers perspective, playing on an iPhone 6s plus. I thought it starts too difficult. I wish I had a little more time in the early rounds. Also I wish the "next-level" beacon came sooner, and less randomly. I played about 30 games, but only made it past level 1 three times. I think the rocket ships are a great idea. Even if you made the first levels a bit easier, the expert player could rocket-ship past them to start at the harder levels.
Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Yeah, you have to play very precise AND fast at the same time. But I wouldn't say that it is much harder on small screens. You can play faster because you have to cover smaller distances with your finger. And I have balanced the difficulty a bit depending on the screen size. Although the position and number of the dots in each stage are random to some degree, you will have slightly more dots on devices with bigger screens, making it a bit harder to reach the next stage. I personally still have an iPhone4 beside my iPad and used both during development and testing. Now I'm able to achieve similar highscores on both devices.
