Phoenix HD - Bullet hell Shooter by Firi Games (Universal App)

[Future Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by Selachii

We have considered the option to store more power-ups multiple times and there are several things to consider.

• If it would be possible, how many would you be able to store? 1 more? 2 more? Infinite? Since they are so powerful they have a big impact on the difficulty and balance of the gameplay. We don't want to make them weaker, because they need to remain awesome. We are pretty happy with the current difficulty of the game, so we prefer not to meddle too much with this.
• How would you use the power-ups? Is it a first-in-last-out type situation, with the current controls? How do you see which one is used first? The inevitable next feature-request would be an option to select which power-up to use. This would need a new interface or a different way to interact with the power-ups.
• It would weaken the dilemma of "which power-up to store?", which is a bit of gameplay I like.

Thanks for your response Selachii and some great answers. Some of the questions you've posed I did consider myself but wanted to keep down the length of my original comment.

Originally Posted by Selachii

I personally, currently, would like to chalk it up to skill on how to use the power-ups.

Ace comment and beyond true. What I currently do now is teleport to different spots away from the weapon drop and stay in slow motion until enemies appear. When they do I time my jump to where the weapon is gravitating or another strategic place so that it's absorbed and released at the right moment. This doesn't always work out but has worked well enough for me to prolong commenting on only being able to store one element at a time. There are the instances though when several elements are on the screen and not enough places to jump or use them. In particular the life generators. There was one game I used two at the same time because I was already storing an EMP weapon.

But what about other players whose favorite ship isn't the Trinity and hence don't have the ability to slow down time or teleport? How do you guys see added storage working? Do you wish added storage was in a future update or you don't mind the current layout and do just fine with your ship of choice?

Originally Posted by Selachii

Like I said, it's a big feature with many consequences and many possible directions. We want to have a perfect solution, so for now we are considering everything on this matter, trying a lot and will continue until we cracked it (Like we did with all updates )

I honestly respect this and your other comments. I definitely DON'T want the game to get too easy because then it loses it's challenge and the quick thinking you need to apply in avoiding getting mauled to death by bullets in the more aggressive scenes. That being said, if an extra storage were added on the next update I wouldn't be back several months later saying "hey guys how about a 3 weapons storage capability now?" Two would be enough for me. Anything more doesn't feel right for Phoenix HD, at least for me personally but I would also love to hear what other players have in mind and what they think is enough storage.

Originally Posted by Selachii

Alternatively we could also add a Drone, capable of carrying an extra power-up for you. This would fit in with the new Drone system nicely, but the interaction/control problem still exists.

Couldn't one of the current drones or a newly added one just be a carrier vehicle in addition to it's current task? Say I have an EMP and pickup a life generator module, the drone just carries it. When I use the EMP, the life generator floats(or other picked up item) from the drone and goes to the main ship. This of course poses several possible questions:

• Should I be able to cycle through the picked up elements and choose which one I want to use? Maybe Triple tap instead of Double tap and watch the two elements transfer(switch places) from your ship and the drone?
  

• What if I don't want the drone to store a particular element? Does or should this just fall into the category or realm of strategy and how to best store weapons and when to strategically use them? Does the game become to easy if you can choose which drops to store or not?

I'm going to give the control question some more thought but what do you think of the way weapons are stored in Shogun HD by int13?

[Selachii]

Originally Posted by Future Tomorrow

Thanks for your response Selachii and some great answers.
[..]
Couldn't one of the current drones or a newly added one just be a carrier vehicle in addition to it's current task? Say I have an EMP and pickup a life generator module, the drone just carries it. When I use the EMP, the life generator floats(or other picked up item) from the drone and goes to the main ship.
[..]
I'm going to give the control question some more thought but what do you think of the way weapons are stored in Shogun HD by int13?

Thanks
First in-first out sounds like the most reasonable solution. There would be no possibility to switch them, but I would prefer keeping the controls simple over adding functionality.

If there's one thing we learned is that players just want to keep it simple and press start/play/retry without too much regard with what's on the screen. Actually, a large part of the players does not know you can use stored power-ups with a tap. They just play and use whatever drops on them. Stored power-ups are only used to cancel the bullet that would otherwise kill them... which happens automatically

I'm not sure what storing mechanic you are referring to from Shogun HD, you mean the capsules? I only played the first mission in that game and wasn't particularly drawn to try more. Also, the regional score screen seemed broken, which put me off a bit as well.

[Future Tomorrow]

Thanks for your responses Selachii.

Originally Posted by Selachii

Actually, a large part of the players does not know you can use stored power-ups with a tap. They just play and use whatever drops on them. Stored power-ups are only used to cancel the bullet that would otherwise kill them... which happens automatically

On www.firigames.com/phoenix it does not mention in the FAQS, Overview or anywhere else that a a stored power-up is released with a tap so while I agree 100% players probably love simplicity they also don't have prior knowledge. I would have personally added a "Tips" or "did you know" section and highlight things there that might not be so obvious to the user if there is no instructions. Checking the analytics and time spent on the page regularly could determine if it was a mistake to add it or users aren't interested/don't need it

I believe the thinking was and is very very correct that the game should be simple enough to not need instructions unless it's cleverly done like Angry Birds where they tell you once for each new bird how to use it.

Originally Posted by Selachii

I'm not sure what storing mechanic you are referring to from Shogun HD, you mean the capsules? I only played the first mission in that game and wasn't particularly drawn to try more. Also, the regional score screen seemed broken, which put me off a bit as well.

My apologies here. It's not a storing mechanic but how you access different weapons. You lift your finger off the device and the Shogun slows down and you see a display of different weapons, EMP's and the ability to add drones. I agree with you. Not sure what happened with that game but after playing a few times it doesn't hold the same interest as PHD.

Thanks and have a great weekend

[Selachii]

Originally Posted by Future Tomorrow

Thanks for your responses Selachii.
[..]
You lift your finger off the device and the Shogun slows down and you see a display of different weapons, EMP's and the ability to add drones.

It's my pleasure.

Shogun HD's weapon selection works rather well indeed. The mechanic is similar to the Trinity teleport+time slowdown. Kudos to the devs for finding an elegant solution for their controls as well! I appreciate those kinds of mechanics much more than Cave's blunt on-screen buttons for their copy-paste arcade games.

[MidianGTX]

Danmaku Unlimited 2 just inspired me to come here and bug you guys for a sequel. I'm still enjoying Phoenix HD but I'd love to see what kind of amazing ideas you'd come up with if you were starting a new game from scratch. Personally, I'm still waiting for an iOS game with a Shoot The Bullet-inspired boss mode, but I'm not sure it really fits the whole Phoenix style, having set levels and all.

If you wanna take a leaf out of the Touhou book though, name the powerful boss attacks and have it flash on screen just before they use them. I always thought that was cool

[Selachii]

Wow this ysp buy must be the new type of bot running around here. I was about to reply until I noticed his double post and investigated a bit. Apparently he's just quoting the first post of this thread over and over. Weird Stuff!

That said, @MidianGTX, we are not working on a sequel of Phoenix HD at the moment. We are working on a completely new game (different genre) as well as on more Phoenix HD content. We feel Phoenix HD is a platform we can do more with and the ships have evolved over time to be more radical. I mean, the Mirage and Corsair were intended to be different, but still on par with the original Phoenix ship. The Shogun and Trinity were so different we had to split the Leaderboards and now that we've done that we can explore even more possibilities. We are going to find out how far we can take it, so all suggestions are welcome

[nemerleb]

thought this was Phoenix Wright HD.....

[syntheticvoid]

Originally Posted by nemerleb

thought this was Phoenix Wright HD.....

Guess the 'bullet hell shooter' in the title didn't stick out enough, huh...

[Selachii]

Hey guys, cool fact: we just passed 1 million players on the Phoenix leaderboard! That's the ship Phoenix! So that's 1 mil on the same leaderboard, woohoo! This means we finally have someone with a Diamond medal, as it is awarded to every top player per 1million competitors.

Thank you guys for competing and being part of this giant community

What's your spot? I am #345 with 10.344.345, pretty good no?


oh, and I almost forgot. We've doubled the amount of coins in the small and medium coin packs, enjoy.

[userfume]

Are you planning on releasing an Android version:/?