Gratuitous Space Battles - (by Red Marble Games)

[Royce]

Originally Posted by Fimb

For Christ's sake, dont be silly, it wasnt about the new iPad and whining. It was about releasing a game which crashes on EVERY device, on iPad 1-2-3, basically at every button you push.

I play the release version on my iPad 2 nearly every day. It is completely playable, and does not crash at all unless I try one of a few actions I have learned to avoid. It does not crash on every device on every button push. I certainly feel bad for those who find it unplayable, but I can see how the release bugs passed through testing if the people involved had a similar setup to mine and regularly kept their memory clear.

[cloud tiger]

I agree. Better this than all the sycophants sucking upto a developer who released a buggy product then disappears off the face of the Earth.

Oh they must be that busy fixing the bugs they don't have 30 seconds to post an update for their Customers.....

[Werechihuahua]

Originally Posted by Werechihuahua

Here's the straight dope from Cliffski, the original dev. This has been linked here already but I thought it worthwhile to post the actual text.

from Cliffski
Hello, just saw this thread. here are all the facts:

1) The GSB port to mac , and then ipad is not handled by me, but by a thrid party developer, so I'm a bit removed from the immediate process. Thats no excuse, just stating it so people know its not because I am teh lazy or whatever.

2) There were bugs in the first release! This became painfully obvious on launch day, despite a fair bit of testing. Testing GSB is pretty much all I use my ipad for. Needless to say I encountered zero issues when I told mark it seemed final to me, but I was wrong. I had previously sent it back to him with bug list about 50 times, so it's not like we didn't bother QA'ing it.

3) The game has been patched, to resolve a whole bunch of crash issues. Due to a slight annoying oversight, that patch itself had a bit of a functionality SNAFU, so once we spotted that, the game was yanked from the store until we can release a 2nd patch that fixes it all. Hence, it's unavilable for a few dayz.

4) GSB uses a LOT of RAM for an ipad game, even after a severe re-engineering. It was never desigend for tablets and thus is a pretty uber complex game. We tested this to oblivion, but I now realise that when doing so, I always closed all other open apps on my ipad. I have a very strong suspicion that any crashes encountered are memory issues. We could get around this by the sneaky 'quit and reload the game between battles' method, which is actually fast enough to be almost unnoticed, but apparently apple REFUSE to let you do that, and also I note REFUSE to sell an app with a close button, because... err... well you tell me frankly.

So obviously we are aware, and working on it, and want it to be great, but in the meantime, if you have any other ipad apps open, close them before running the game.

Someone explain to me WHY its so unforgivable for an app to have a close button? Has there been a swathe of 'close-button-related-suicides' before the ipad shipped?

Posting here asking for an update, then posting again an hour later moaning that the devs didn't reply, when the answer has already been posted in the same thread is ... Make up your own adjective. I don't want to offend anyone.

[Royce]

Originally Posted by Werechihuahua

Posting here asking for an update, then posting again an hour later moaning that the devs didn't reply, when the answer has already been posted in the same thread is ... Make up your own adjective. I don't want to offend anyone.

Gratuitous?

[Maniacfive]

Originally Posted by Werechihuahua

... Make up your own adjective. I don't want to offend anyone.

I believe frasmotic is a perfectly cromulant adjective in this instance.

In addition, It's a bank holiday weekend in large parts of the world. Not sure where the Devs for this are based, but as has already been posted. A fix is underway, its been pulled temporarily. Etc etc.

I'm not working. I'm checking these forums in my leisure time. if a dev doesn't check in on his leisure time, I'm not gonna hold that against them. You'd won't find me calling into the shop on my days off asking how our post-pay new target is going.

[Fafner]

Originally Posted by Fimb

For Christ's sake, dont be silly, it wasnt about the new iPad and whining. It was about releasing a game which crashes on EVERY device, on iPad 1-2-3, basically at every button you push. Then they released a patch which made things even worse for weeks. Come on, go ahead and support the devs. I hope it was an accident, but I won't SUPPORT this kind of behaviour. It would be plain stupid.

Nobody says you have to support them it your decision but making being mean to people who chose to support them just makes you sound like a troll.

If you don't want to support them why do you keep coming to this thread?

[Fimb]

Because I feel we've been screwed (not everyone on every device, but too many). Let me turn on your question: why would YOU support them at this point on this platform?
Don't want to be rude of course (and please don't pull the old trolling argument here). It's also not about twelve year olds losing their shite (another typical answer in a situation like this). It's about buying a broken product and complaining /warning others not to buy it, even if the devs are promising things. The stuff you do on forums. You know, because I don't want this to be the norm and don't want to support this kind of development. (Remember 100 Rogues? That game was broken at release, but it was playable for many. Look up the thread if you want to read about whining.)

Oh and I've seen the comments /tweets from the developers. Eagerly waiting.

[Fimb]

Originally Posted by Royce

It is completely playable, and does not crash at all unless I try one of a few actions I have learned to avoid.

Completely playable and trying to avoid a few (basic) actions is kinda contradicting, no? I'm not sure about you, but for me the game is pointless as it is at this point. I dont want to suffer through the missions while cant edit my ships and cant see the end results (crashes every time before the pie charts). I am not playing the game for three weeks, which is pretty rad if you ask me. I bet there are many "early adopters" in the same situation who left the thread and the game because of this.

[Royce]

Originally Posted by Fimb

Completely playable and trying to avoid a few (basic) actions is kinda contradicting, no?

No. I'm not trying to argue here, but it is playable for me. All I can't do is delete ship designs, change race from deployment (though I can change from stage select), and change modules after saving a ship design without doing something else first. I might have missed something, but the point is that since I know to avoid those nonessential actions, the game rarely crashes. I had the post battle stats crash when I first installed, but since rebooting and clearing memory, I haven't seen it once.

[Werechihuahua]

Man, we're talking about a whole fortnight to fix and re-release the game. I've got iOS games from a year ago with the same bugs and nary and update. Hold your water my friend... The game, fixed and improved, should be back on the AppStore real soon now.

I don't expect anyone to "support" developer who release buggin crap and leave their customers holding the bag filled with an unplayable game. That has NOT happened here with Big Red Marble or Positech. These are both established companies with long, very good, track records of making great games and supporting them well. I am VERY dissappointed to have to wait for another week to play this one on my iPad... But it isnt going to make my parts shrivel.

While you're waiting check out Robotek HD which is excellent fun, free, and .99 to unlock everything permanently, Radiant Defense, and Radiant. All 3 winners that total less than 60 megs.