Quote:
Originally Posted by
casualty
... it seems a bit "thrown together"; putting on some big touch button controls and cramming the tilesets into a different resolution (which don't turn out as well as the other Powder versions I've tried). ... The gameplay is still Powder, which is a great RL that has served me my behind many many times, but I wish a little more love was put into the port. I'll file this under "has potential..." Please don't hate me Mr Lait!
I was very interested to see Powder arrive today. Unfortunately after trying it out I'd have to agree with this assessment. Developing on the iPhone and iPod really require you to think about your interface and controls. Trying to force a control scheme meant for physical buttons just doesn't cut it. If I'd put out a straight port of Rogue complete with mini on-screen keyboard to play it on I'd have been laughed right out of the store.
What are some things I'd do differently?
1) Put your character stats bar at the TOP of the screen, so your hand is not covering it all the time.
2) The two rows of buttons? Bring both of those to the bottom, in portrait and landscape mode.
3) Ditch the GBA/DS pad and A/B buttons, and come up with a more elegant way to get through menus with your finger. This would include an overhaul of your inventory management. Make it multi-view based like RT so you choose the item from a scrolling list and then get the options of what to do with that item in a nice finger-friendly list of buttons.
4) When you rotate the screen, make sure the iPhone status bar rotates with it (or remove it altogether if you want). I like having it for keeping track of time and battery life while dungeon crawling, so of course I would prefer it remain.
5) Speaking of the iPhone status bar, set it to be black/transparent so it is not as jarring against the rest of the scene. Then you can even allow it to overlay the top row of tiles as I do in Rogue Touch.
I could probably go on and on. Jeff, if you're listening, please ask for ideas or more tips here, we'd all be happy to help you make this a better experience