Dangerous (a.k.a Null Space) [Universal]

[Peewhy]

So is this a direct EVE clone? how does it differ?

[Alex DeLargest]

Another suggestion: boarding sounds cool and all, but what would be even sweeter would be actual docking sequences and realistic surface to orbit transitions. Again, F:FE still might be the king in this regard. The transit from ground to space is sublime, with the glow of the sun in the atmosphere, and the planet receding below.

[binaryhelix]

Originally Posted by Alex DeLargest

Those sound amazing and frankly, much needed. I really think that all you're missing with this title is some polish and streamlining, and then you'll see some serious attention.

I really like this game, enough that I deleted GoF2. It's got mad depth and actually feels vast and mysterious, like space should/would, instead of the small sameness of GoF2 or that truly horrible Warpgate game. However, Dangerous is just so fiddly to play at points. I like to play games when a little buzzed, and the multiple steps for every little action are a buzzkill.

Hopefully you'll like the new update which tries to streamline the game where it is clunky and permits strategizing by adding in pauses.

Add in the ugly menus and things like the stretched splash screen and the bugs and the clipping during docking and through planets when warping, and yeah. It's got a niche, but in it's current state I feel that the only people who can look through all of the above are people who still fire up Frontier: First Encounters and/or Eve Online addicts.

The clipping through planets during warp is intentional (and EVE does this, too). The reasoning is pseudo-technologically sound: During warp, space warps around the craft, so there is no damage even though you're passing through a planet. If we didn't do this, then having to plot a course around planets, moons, and stars would make navigation a nightmare. Even EVE with its incredible complexity didn't bother to change this, and you'll warp through everything in that game.

The clipping through the station while undocking and docking has been reduced since you're supposed to appear outside of the station's physical extents, and docking is supposed to complete before you dive into the station itself. This could probably be improved further. At some point, we'd like to turn on the colliders again, so ship and station collisions would be possible. This was in an early build, but for performance reasons with the autopilots, we took it out. In fact, we had plans for a collision shield module, so you could go around ramming ships and inflict massive kinetic damage. Hopefully we can add it down the road.

A game of this complexity took longer to debug than we hoped, but now that that task is mostly done, we are able to concentrate more on the aesthetics and streamlining the experience more.

No offense meant. I really appreciate that this game exists for those times I have the patience for it and I further appreciate that you seem committed to honing it into something truly special.

No offense taken! We love feedback because it gives us a chance to improve the game even more.

Originally Posted by Peewhy

So is this a direct EVE clone? how does it differ?

It's not a direct clone since we've simplified fitting (there is no CPU or power grid restrictions, primarily it's energy based with penalties for incorrect sizes). It's also a single player game where we simulate the "MMO" with NPC ships that are autonomous agents and are persistent. So the world keeps ticking even when you're docked inside a station. There are three damage types/resistances (EM, Kinetic, and Gravitic), and only shields and armor (no separate hull HP). However, you can bring up to two AI wingmen with you who each have specialized skills and ships. The enemies can and do equip the same modules as you, so I'd compare it more to EVE's PVP than its PVE missions. If you know EVE, you could easily jump into Dangerous. But you don't have to know EVE since we have a lengthy tutorial.

Also, you can recruit corporate pilots who will fly trade or mining routes on your behalf. This part is similar in ways to X3. Our mining game has you directly shooting lasers at the asteroids, and the tractor beam is automatic. Part of the goal was to eliminate the boring time sinks you'd find in games like EVE where mining is a mind-numbingly boring grind.

There's lots more like scanning for derelict ships and wormholes, a skill tree, large variety of missions including dynamic missions that affect existing NPC ships such as pirate attack, break down, and fake break downs. We also have an epic story with a dialog system like Mass Effect.

Originally Posted by Alex DeLargest

Another suggestion: boarding sounds cool and all, but what would be even sweeter would be actual docking sequences and realistic surface to orbit transitions. Again, F:FE still might be the king in this regard. The transit from ground to space is sublime, with the glow of the sun in the atmosphere, and the planet receding below.

We'd love to add all that since we ultimately want atmospheric entry/take off/landing, and are currently deciding whether to tackle ship boarding encounters or massively multiplayer next. But there's only two of us, so it will take longer to do compared to a typical company, unfortunately. But we'll keep on trucking along as long as we are able. We could definitely use some help in spreading the word about the game still, so please tell your friends and reviewers about Dangerous.

[mprey]

I like this game so much that I signed up to chime in - it is great to hear you are working on presentation aspects of the game because those matter a lot to iOS gamers who get bombarded by hundreds of games per month. You have to stand out and currently I unfortunately think you're not doing a good job with it.

It's the little things too, for example, I think your app icon is utterly generic and says absolutely nothing about the game - it's a guy with a gun...I mean, that's really not what the game is really about, so why that icon? People will assume it's another generic shooter or whatever, and you've lost them there and then. The same could be said about the name (Dangerous...what is dangerous? It's incredibly generic and uninteresting), which you unfortunately can't change now but maybe you can add a nifty subtitle or something like that (Dangerous: Awesome Space Adventure...well not literally but you get the drift).

It's those things that I find to be symptomatic of the larger game. There's lots of minor details that could be improved like the low-res space backgrounds, textures etc. Unfortunately you are directly competing with one of the most polished and graphically impressive titles on the App Store (GoF of course) and if I knew nothing about either game and had to choose, obviously I'd go with GoF - not because the graphics but because I feel you don't really emphasize how your game is actually much deeper or fun.

Anyway, if you can manage to clean up the presentation, I feel it would help a lot. Of course a small indie team can only do so much compared with a large company...but the fight isn't quite lost yet.

A Kickstarter campaign by the way won't help you get exposure - it should be the other way around - you should use existing exposure for a Kickstarter campaign to improve the game / do a sequel / etc. The problem is you've already got a product out - so it would only make sense for a vastly improved sequel, I guess.

[heringer]

My biggest beef with the presentation is that I don't feel my ship is moving.

[binaryhelix]

Originally Posted by mprey

I like this game so much that I signed up to chime in - it is great to hear you are working on presentation aspects of the game because those matter a lot to iOS gamers who get bombarded by hundreds of games per month. You have to stand out and currently I unfortunately think you're not doing a good job with it.

It's the little things too, for example, I think your app icon is utterly generic and says absolutely nothing about the game - it's a guy with a gun...I mean, that's really not what the game is really about, so why that icon? People will assume it's another generic shooter or whatever, and you've lost them there and then. The same could be said about the name (Dangerous...what is dangerous? It's incredibly generic and uninteresting), which you unfortunately can't change now but maybe you can add a nifty subtitle or something like that (Dangerous: Awesome Space Adventure...well not literally but you get the drift).

Part of the reason for the icon is the game's storyline is character-driven, and we've had plans all along to have an on-foot portion of the game. The original name was "Dangerous: Null Space". And of course, the very beginning of the game explains the name. But we hear ya. We may yet talk to the artist to see if he can give us a more spacey icon and splash image.

It's those things that I find to be symptomatic of the larger game. There's lots of minor details that could be improved like the low-res space backgrounds, textures etc. Unfortunately you are directly competing with one of the most polished and graphically impressive titles on the App Store (GoF of course) and if I knew nothing about either game and had to choose, obviously I'd go with GoF - not because the graphics but because I feel you don't really emphasize how your game is actually much deeper or fun.

I think it's harder for a game like Galaxy on Fire 2 to improve their core mechanics to be as deep and fun as Dangerous whereas we keep improving our presentation with each update. The new radial menus in the upcoming update should radically improve the player experience. We are also adding in options, so people can keep the old interface if they like the instant access or have a large screen and don't mind the clutter (prefer function over form).

Also, let us know if you have ideas on how we can emphasize that our game is much deeper and fun.

Anyway, if you can manage to clean up the presentation, I feel it would help a lot. Of course a small indie team can only do so much compared with a large company...but the fight isn't quite lost yet.

If you have any specifics, let us know. We'll keep improving the game based on specific feedback.

A Kickstarter campaign by the way won't help you get exposure - it should be the other way around - you should use existing exposure for a Kickstarter campaign to improve the game / do a sequel / etc. The problem is you've already got a product out - so it would only make sense for a vastly improved sequel, I guess.

There are several major improvements that the Kickstarter campaign could be used for: new and improved ship models, highly polished first- or third-person shooter element, and massively multiplayer. If nothing else, the campaign might get us more notice which is a good thing even if the campaign doesn't succeed. We're also able to update the "message of the day" which appears when people first start the game so alert them to the Kickstarter campaign, so hopefully existing fans can help here.

Originally Posted by heringer

My biggest beef with the presentation is that I don't feel my ship is moving.

The space dust visuals work better when the ship is not moving super fast. We'd like to add more like dust clouds and dust streaks in a future update. These should make the speed appear much more significant. But keep in mind a game like GoF2 is able to make it seem like you're moving because they intentionally keep your ship's speed low whereas ships in Dangerous can easily move move than 1 km/s. So it's more challenging, but hey, challenge accepted.

[Markwend]

Gday hijacking is working well now after last update thank you,but just to let you know the shaders are not working again , I have an ipad2 os 5.1 , it's the same as before the shader fix,
Sounds like some great improvements coming , looking forward to trying them out

Cheers

[binaryhelix]

Originally Posted by Markwend

Gday hijacking is working well now after last update thank you,but just to let you know the shaders are not working again , I have an ipad2 os 5.1 , it's the same as before the shader fix,
Sounds like some great improvements coming , looking forward to trying them out

Cheers

What I noticed after some testing on my iPad2 is that the textures start out OK, but after a time, the black textures return. We'll have to dig further on this frustrating shader problem. One thing you can do in the meanwhile is change to use the "unlit" shader.

Good to know the hijacking fix worked.

[VirtualBoyFreak]

BinaryHelix, when are the new radial menus coming? Has the update been submitted or are you planning on submitting it in the following days/weeks? Also, did you get to implement the "save anywhere" feature? Are you planning on implementing it? Thanks

[binaryhelix]

Originally Posted by VirtualBoyFreak

BinaryHelix, when are the new radial menus coming? Has the update been submitted or are you planning on submitting it in the following days/weeks? Also, did you get to implement the "save anywhere" feature? Are you planning on implementing it? Thanks

We hope to finish the radial menus & laser and submit the update by the end of next week if all goes to plan, but it's a fairly substantial change, so the date might slip.

We have the "save anywhere" on our gigantic To Do list, but it is actually a very involved change that requires breaking down all quests into different stages/states. At this point, I'd rather try to get either the boarding aspect or some form of multiplayer done first (after the radial menus). Most games in this genre seem to use the station as a natural save point (Galaxy on Fire 2, X3, Elite, etc), so it feels more like a luxury than a must have.