iPhone: Monster RPG 2 ($2.99)

[crunc]

I was pleased to see that this app is universal... until I tried it on my iPad. First, it's clearly just a scaling up - it doesn't even fill the screen - and much worse, it doesn't autorotate your view, and in any case it is oriented such that it is upside down when using the smart cover to prop the iPad up. I hope this can be improved/fixed in an update soon. I'd like to play it on my iPad.

[trentg]

Originally Posted by crunc

I was pleased to see that this app is universal... until I tried it on my iPad. First, it's clearly just a scaling up - it doesn't even fill the screen - and much worse, it doesn't autorotate your view, and in any case it is oriented such that it is upside down when using the smart cover to prop the iPad up. I hope this can be improved/fixed in an update soon. I'd like to play it on my iPad.

I does fill the screen by default, but yes, it is a scaling. Check out the options menu from the top level menu. You can solve both issues there. There's an option to maintain a 1x1 pixel ratio or fill the screen, as well as an option to set the rotation to landscape left, landscape right, or automatic.

[crunc]

Originally Posted by trentg

I does fill the screen by default, but yes, it is a scaling. Check out the options menu from the top level menu. You can solve both issues there. There's an option to maintain a 1x1 pixel ratio or fill the screen, as well as an option to set the rotation to landscape left, landscape right, or automatic.

Ah! I wasn't asking for it to stretch to fill, I want it to be designed for the aspect ratio of the screen. I.e. optimized for both, not just the iPhone. However, that's a minor issue. I'm just glad to hear that there's an option to turn on autorotate! It's odd that this isn't the default, but I'll live. Thanks!

EDIT: could you explain what the different filtering options do? I tried a few, but it's a pain switching between them as you have to relaunch. I couldn't figure out what "Half Scale" does in particular. It looks the same as no filtering, but I'm not sure.

[trentg]

Originally Posted by crunc

Ah! I wasn't asking for it to stretch to fill, I want it to be designed for the aspect ratio of the screen. I.e. optimized for both, not just the iPhone. However, that's a minor issue. I'm just glad to hear that there's an option to turn on autorotate! It's odd that this isn't the default, but I'll live. Thanks!

Yeah, unfortunately a large number of the assets are fixed size paintings that would be very difficult to recreate to fit the iPad screen precisely. I'd have to hire someone to do it and this isn't a big budget game.

EDIT: could you explain what the different filtering options do? I tried a few, but it's a pain switching between them as you have to relaunch. I couldn't figure out what "Half Scale" does in particular. It looks the same as no filtering, but I'm not sure.

No filtering, half scale, and scale down are mostly the same - not entirely though. No filter asks iOS for a 1024x768 screen, half scale asks for half of that and scale down asks for a 240x160 screen (the game's native res). They look a little different due to the way iOS handles those things, but essentially they're very similar, just some draw less pixels and therefore you'll get a very high framerate with those, especially Scale down.

Linear filter uses OpenGLs MAG filter set to LINEAR to upscale the image. This IMO is not really pretty but some people like it.

Scale2x was a good idea in theory, but it ends up not working very well with this game in particular. scale2x is a special type of filter for pixel art type games, similar to 2xSaI or hq2x but it's a lot simpler so it can be implemented in a shader. I was kind of disappointed with the way it look in this particular game, but left the option there anyway.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by crunc

it is oriented such that it is upside down when using the smart cover to prop the iPad up.

I don't get it. I don't have a smart cover, but can't you use it on either side of the iPad 2?

[trentg]

It's kind of a moot point because you can orient the screen either way in the game.

I forgot to mention that I meant to make auto rotation the default, but only remembered when it was too late. It would be too small of a feature to make a full release for now, but hopefully down the road I'll make a new release with it as the default.

[trentg]

Ahahah. I just stumbled on this post, and I happen to be working on a new update (1.9) right now. Good thing I did, as I had forgotten I was going to make auto-rotation the default setting .

While I'm here, might as well mention the main things that are going to be updated this release: will play much smoother/faster on all devices but especially 1st and 2nd gen touch/iphone. Some new translations are finished: Dutch, Italian, Euro-French, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese. Translations that are being worked on and I hope will be finished: Canadian French, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian and Greek. Erick is working on revamping the player characters for battle scenes - so far they look great, however, this change may be in 1.10 and not 1.9, but it depends on various factors. As always I'm going to be testing and fixing and bugs, and tweaking anything that is less than perfect in the game. And last but not least, the much cried for LOWER BATTLE FREQUENCY will make its way into this update. The total difference is about 1/4 to 1/3 fewer battles. Hopefully this doesn't play havoc with the balance of the game as far as having enough experience and gold so as not to have to grind.

Thanks as always,
Trent

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by trentg

Ahahah. I just stumbled on this post, and I happen to be working on a new update (1.9) right now. Good thing I did, as I had forgotten I was going to make auto-rotation the default setting .

While I'm here, might as well mention the main things that are going to be updated this release: will play much smoother/faster on all devices but especially 1st and 2nd gen touch/iphone. Some new translations are finished: Dutch, Italian, Euro-French, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese. Translations that are being worked on and I hope will be finished: Canadian French, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian and Greek. Erick is working on revamping the player characters for battle scenes - so far they look great, however, this change may be in 1.10 and not 1.9, but it depends on various factors. As always I'm going to be testing and fixing and bugs, and tweaking anything that is less than perfect in the game. And last but not least, the much cried for LOWER BATTLE FREQUENCY will make its way into this update. The total difference is about 1/4 to 1/3 fewer battles. Hopefully this doesn't play havoc with the balance of the game as far as having enough experience and gold so as not to have to grind.

Thanks as always,
Trent

Wow, cool to see you still updating this game. Do people really feel the random encounters were too frequent though? I never really felt that was the case at all and found myself grinding somewhat already as it was...but maybe that is just me. I would suggest that the best thing to do might be to have different difficulty levels if you are worried about the balancing issues with reducing encounters. Maybe keep the original setting as "normal" and have the new, less encounters + reduced monster levels by 20% or more for an "easy" mode. If you wanted to tweak the monster levels to require more grinding and make that "hard" mode then that would be cool too, I guess. Just some thoughts. (I would hate to see the balance of this excellent game fouled up just to appease more casual gamers.)

[trentg]

Originally Posted by medianotzu

I would suggest that the best thing to do might be to have different difficulty levels if you are worried about the balancing issues with reducing encounters. Maybe keep the original setting as "normal" and have the new, less encounters + reduced monster levels by 20% or more for an "easy" mode. If you wanted to tweak the monster levels to require more grinding and make that "hard" mode then that would be cool too, I guess. Just some thoughts. (I would hate to see the balance of this excellent game fouled up just to appease more casual gamers.)

Don't worry, I won't let it get out of control . But yes, I've had tonnes of complaints and bad ratings from people saying the game is too hard. There are already difficulty settings, but apparently people don't look in "Options". But I personally also feel the encounter rate may be just a little high. What I might do is adjust it by 10-15% for normal difficulty, an extra 20% or so for easy, and go the other way a bit with the hard difficulty setting. I will be playing the game through a few more times for sure before this update is released, so I'll make sure not to ruin it for the more experienced, patient players.

Thanks for your feedback ,
Trent

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by trentg

There are already difficulty settings, but apparently people don't look in "Options".

Haha, I forgot about that.

Glad to hear you won't throw the baby out with the bathwater then, so to speak. I still love this game and come back to it from time to time even though I've had it for, geez, going on 2 years now? That's rare for any video game, let alone a portable game that costs a couple bucks.