AstroSerf - Line drawing mayhem with physics! [submitted]

Hi everyone, I'm the developer of AstroSerf, a new game from DaVoid Digital (i.e., me) for the iPhone and iPod touch (naturally). It's a path drawing game similar to Flight Control or Harbor Master, but in space, and with a few twists.

So basically you land spaceships on the planets by drawing paths to them, wait for the ships to unload to collect points, and then get them out again safely.

The whole thing is physics-based though, unlike other path drawing games. The ships are guided by physics, and you also control bouncy physics objects (junk) that can get in your way and block landing zones.



Oh, and did I mention the landing zones are moving planets?



Because it all gets pretty crazy, you don't insta-die if you crash, either. You get three chances, and ship-to-ship collisions just mess up paths and knock the spaceships around. Same for junk-to-ship collisions, so you can get some target shooting mayhem going on the side if you want (or maybe that's just me!).

Also, I've put in a few obvious things that I literally can't believe no path drawing game has done, like the ability to do holding patterns. If you draw a path in a loop and bring it back to the ship, it closes the loop and will continue like that until something comes along and kills it. And in my testing experience, it will, quickly.

Basically the game balance skews to being much more forgiving than typical path drawing games, because I don't know about you, but when playing other games of this type, when things start getting mental with tons of crap flying everywhere, I want the game to KEEP GOING!

There are four different levels right now, which have different numbers of planets and different planet speeds. On the hardest one it gets pretty crazy, as you really have to be mindful of the ships' vs. planet's speed. I'm planning on adding in a story mode in a future update, too, which will mix up the gameplay for different levels even more. Looking at OpenFeint/Scoreloop or similar for the next update too, as well as achievements/unlockables so let me know what you all would generally prefer.



I'm almost ready for the initial app submission now, so look for it in the App Store most likely sometime in early November. Like I said, once the first submission is done it's straight into the update, so I'd love suggestions from all of you if there's anything you'd like to see.

Alternately, you can also use DaVoid Digital's Get Satisfaction community at http://getsatisfaction.com/davoid, or throught the contact page on the site.

As a last thing, here's a gameplay video from last week or so. It's a complete playthrough of one session.

YouTube: video

Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel

 

Update!

Just a quick update to say AstroSerf has been submitted to Apple for approval. Keep an eye out for it in the App Store in early November!

 

I'm with you there - I actually started developing AstroSerf before the recent flood of path drawing games, but when I saw the way that was going I tried to mix it up a bit and keep it fun for players who might be growing a bit tired of the same old formula (mostly because I'm also one of them).

I'll be doing a light version in conjunction with the first update as well. I'm just a one-man band, so I have to prioritize these things!

What I would really like to know from all of you, though, is which social platform would you like to see? Right now I'm looking at AGON and OpenFeint as the strongest contenders, but I'm open to suggestions.