All the big data (map, leaderboards, ...) are already zipped during the transfers, so there's not much I can gain there unless I reduce the size of the map (though I could slightly increase the compression factor on the server now that I have a better cache). In normal usage, you download the surrounding area once (which takes about 160k on an iPhone), and then the rest of the transfers (taps, presses) are really small. If you start scrolling around however, you will re-download 160ko every time you scroll an entire map screen. This will indeed add up quickly. I should add a warning in the App Store description though, even if it's more or less expected from an online game.
That's amazing Here's a convenient link to see it on the web: http://afewbillion.com/?c=-1870&r=-2500&un=Calamitat It's going to be swallowed pretty soon, but if people are careful it should still be visible with the link (since it also selects your area which will then appear darker).
Thanks for all the suggestions! I like the levelling one. A very simple idea that comes to mind is custom titles depending on the size of the empire. Those titles could appear in the leaderboards for example, and would motivate people to keep playing. The color is a bit tricky to do, both technically and aesthetically. I love the idea of having everybody in a different color, but it would quickly become a big mess instead of the nice shades of blue that we have right now. But it's definitively something that I have in mind. The dungeons are interesting, but it sounds like a very different game that might be better fitted to the other non multiplayer mine sweepers of the app store don't you think? I love discoverable items. One of my initial ideas was to have special tiles around the board that you could collect, pokemon style*. They would appear randomly like Sonars and Wipers, but their only purpose would be to be collected. And then I can definitively add more tools to the current sonar/wiper combo. * if you look around the [0, 0] location in a 500 tiles range, you might still find some weird white tiles that you cannot tap or press. Those used to be "treasures" in the initial versions. The client doesn't know what to do with them anymore so I tried to delete all of them manually, but I might have missed some
I don't mind, I will still know I made it. ^^ Is there a browseable map of the entire world online somewhere? The one you linked to works fine if I know what I'm looking for, but clicking and dragging makes the whole screen turn blank. I'm trying to find a large open space with no one around. I wouldn't want to interfere with anyone else when my 32x32 pixels start cropping up....
This game is addicting, but it's in dire need of a right mouse button to differentiate the click types. Maybe I just need to slow down a bit, but 90% of my mistakes (when I'm actually farming an area instead of scouting with a snake) are from either holding too long on a blue or tapping too quickly on a yellow and not because I guessed wrong. But I just took 3rd in an hourly race so I guess it can't be affecting me too much.
Nicely done. I'm still not hitting anywhere visible on the race boards, but it's still fun to compete on the regular. That glimmer of hope that I could have a chance instead of chasing long standing epic scores.
Well it shouldn't turn blank, it should keep updating . May I ask what kind of computer and screen size you're using? There's probably a bug on my website or a performance issue. I had some trouble with large window size initially, but thought I had fixed the performance issues. Maybe as a temp fix you could try with a smaller window?
Looking for testers So the 1.1 update is almost done. I'm currently adding some custom titles which depend on the empire size, and I'd like to play a bit with using different shades of blue in the mini-map to differentiate players, but most of the big changes are there. It would be really useful if some of you who gave feedback could test it a little bit. I'm particularly concerned about the new logic to detect trolls: I really don't want the penalty to happen to normal players, and the only way to test that is to test with real players. So if any of you is interested, contact me by private message (or mail from the game), and we'll setup your device! (Sweetdiss, MrMojoRisin and popjam5, you can already download the update from the previous web site, though I would recommend waiting for version 1B2, as 1B1 I uploaded yesterday as an annoying bug which slowdown taps)
Okay, I'll be sure to stay in a more general area from now on while I expand Thanks for the quick response!
It's a 1080p monitor, Windows 7, so quite probably a large screen issue. I'll try to use a smaller window and see if it helps...
Let me know if it works better ; I haven't had much occasions to test with IE either, but Chrome should work fine (and Safari on the mac). I also tweaked the map today, both on the website and in the upcoming 1.1 update, so that empires are displayed with different shades of blue. I think it looked a bit better before with the plain blue, but the new look adds a nice depth, and makes it much easier to spot empires: http://afewbillion.com
It's Firefox (31.0) for me. Windows 7 Pro. As soon as I drag the map goes white and never comes back. Works fine in Chrome.
Thank you! I checked and it didn't work on Firefox on my mac either. I looked into it and just deployed an update which fixes Firefox for me. Let me know if it works better on Windows! If it does you should be able to scroll around, either by dragging or with the mouse wheel. (It seems to be a bit slower than Safari/Chrome though, I'll have to look into it)
I'm not sure if it's just my problem, but I find it a bit straining to try to solve parts around other people's empires. The lighter colors make it a little bit harder to pick out the white numbers. The "1's" which are the darkest of the numbers is especially tough sometimes. Would it be possible to make either the squares on the edges of empires slightly darker so the text would be a little bit more visible? Currently, I'm having to highlight the other person's empire to be able to keep working.
I'll see if I can increase the contrast a little bit without messing the whole color scheme. I'll let you know when you can try it in a build!
Thanks Syro! Some news about the update, I added one last feature inspired by your milestone suggestion: people now get custom titles depending on the size of their empire (cf screenshot below). I have 10 titles for now: - Square Apprentice (100 tiles) - Blue Traveler (1 000) - Yellow Explorer (5 000) - Azure Chief (10 000) - Iron Master (20 000) - Diamond Lord (50 000) - Gold Commander (100 000) - Sapphire King (250 000) - Platinium Imperator (500 000) - Tegula Cosmocrator (1 000 000) I tried to find a relatively natural progression between the titles using both the qualifier and the title itself so that it's easy to know if somebody is higher than you. I'm not sure I succeeded very well though. If you really hate some of them or if you have suggestions, let me know! You can also see in this screenshot that I now try to show other players empires in various shades of light blue. It's not perfect (I only use 71 different level so they can be pretty close), but it still adds some nice depth to the map)
Hey lif, The new features are working wonderfully. I especially love the double-tap to uncover feature, as it really saves a lot of tapping and mistaken taps. The titles are also a really cool addition that help differentiate the players on the leaderboard. I've run into one small problem so far on the iPad version with the new portrait mode and the occasional full-screen adds. Sometimes, the adds would orientate to landscape mode even though the device is still being used in portrait mode. When returning to the game, everything is a little bit squished flat and the screen won't update when tapped. It fixes itself when I reorient the screen, but it can get a little bothersome especially with the bulky iPad. I was also playing around with two ideas. One was a way to know if a player around you has been or is active. Maybe you would tap on their empire and next to their name is "Last Active Within: 15 minutes". The other idea was to have some sort of clan race on top of th individual hourly races. These could possibly span a day or so instead just one single hour.
Thanks for reporting this! I just spent two hours trying to make sense of this with no success, but hopefully I'll fix it by tomorrow. That's a great idea! It's the first thing I did after seeing your message this morning, and you can try it in 1B7 . Please let me know if you see any weirdness: comparing dates is a bit tricky, especially when mixing devices, timezones and an SQL server :/ That would be pretty cool, though it's too late for this release. I'll keep the idea in mind for the next update, thanks!
