Blimp - The Flying Adventures by craneballs. First gameplay video. HD!

Pre scripted... sorta

there are mortars that are stationary and are in the same places when I play. There are also enemy tanks and blimps. They are able to move so they start in the same place but they are constantly moving to attack you.

 

Very polished game

Just played the tutorial.

Here are my initial impressions:

1. Immersive engaging theme throughout. The artwork is really amazing. You should really see the HD gameplay video to know what I mean. You can say that the backgrounds are similar in style to the backdrops of 7CitiedTD (painting-like).

2. The soundtrack is pretty good. It says that its designed for headphones. Using my Shure SE210, they are not as great as Zen Bound, but you can tell a lot of effort was put into the layering of all the sounds. Somehow it makes you feel that you are in some Indiana Jones movie (maybe its because of all the artwork as well). In any case, I don't mind having to download a bigger file if it means I can get an even fuller effect of the soundtrack. Not sure if they can compress it less though.

3. One additional note about sound+theme though: I find it a bit weird that the soundtrack has submarine-like sounds in it (underwater echos and radar beeps). Or maybe I'm hearing wrongly.

4. Plenty of missions. Beta has (edit: 4 levels) and actual game has 20. For the intended release price of 2.99, that's a steal (although not sure whats the length of each level. Will comment more on this next time). Level select is done by rotating a globe. A nice commendable touch and polish compared to other plain button menus you see in most games.

5. Missions (I haven't played past tutorial) consist of either destroying enemies with bombs, rescuing people, and/or collecting and dropping packets. In every mission, you should keep a look out at your upper status bar (left to right): the number of people to rescue, the number of objectives to accomplish, the number of bombs remaining, your health bar, and the remaining time to complete the level. Obstacles consist of fans that blow you away, vents shooting a wall of fire at constant intervals, and paths that you have to maneuver through. I can imagine a varied level design and a nice story the devs can weave into each level.

6. The controls are well thought out. When I first saw the video, I thought the accelerometer controls all movement. Apparently, only the movement direction is controlled by tilting (left and right). Upward thrust is done by touching the lower right of the screen and dropping bombs is done by touching the lower left of the screen. It takes a little bit of practice to get used to the controls but its workable. I find the controls not as finegrained as DropShip (which has an even higher learning curve), but then again, this is a blimp. So its supposed to be harder to control than a spacecraft lol.

Comparison with other games:
I can only think of DropShip and Graviton that resembles this kind of game on the iTouch. DropShip levels are pretty boring after awhile and ngmoco kinda skipped the whole artwork process by making everything vectorized. I've played a little bit of Graviton but I prefer the graphic style of Blimp.

Will post more impressions after going through the levels

Edit: Craneballs, will PM you with my other comments and feedback. Thanks!

 

There are only four levels unlocked in this build
20 levels will be available in 1.0
More will be added in updates

The sound you are thinking of is the sound of echolocation and is not the sound in the game. It's a series of musical notes over morse code with the hum from what I can only describe as an alien space ship underneath it all. I'm using Shure e5c's with custom molding.

You really shouldn't comment about what the levels consist of when you admit that you haven't played past the tutorial.

Even though we didn't have to sign a Non Disclosure agreement you should be careful with posting more impressions as I'm sure the dev doesn't want the story and level design being spoiled for those that get the game.

 

I'm commenting so that people can know what to expect (at the very least) out of the levels. The only caveat is that the levels could be more than what I mentioned. But definitely not less.

Thanks VeganTnT. I dont think this would be a problem. The further impressions I wanted to post was only to confirm or build on what I have already mentioned. And since only 4 levels are unlocked in the build as you mentioned, there should also be no need to worry that I will spoil all the level stories

My earphones are certainly not the best, but its not bad either. I'm just saying that the soundtrack is fantastic but: 1) some of the sounds seem like they are not about blimps (which can be fine), and 2) its so good that I want a higher quality soundtrack if possible

PS: I edited my original post so your quote has some erroneous information (e.g. number of levels in the build)

 

I didn't meant for my post to sound like you have done something wrong. If it came off like that then I apologize.

I just meant that you can't say what all the levels consist of because the devs might have something special that they aren't showing us just yet. We wpn't know til the game is released. I mentioned my headphones cause they are also shure so I thought I'd share that.

I really didn't know what kind of impression you were going to do or what was going to be said. Though I'd like to think that everyone is responsible and conscious of what they write, I know that sometimes we (myself included) aren't.

I'd rather just give a friendly reminder than see someone get in trouble for something I could have prevented by just saying something, you know?

So again, my apologies is my post sounded harsh. It wasn't my intention at all

Cheers!

 

Oh, you did not sound harsh. No worries Sorry if it sounded like I thought you sounded harsh lol I don't have as much experience in beta testing as you do. So I definitely take all your advice into consideration. Thanks again

 

Noraa - 23200 (2 tries)
So-Err - 18300 (2 tries)
Irg - 20800 (2 trries)
Uhuruu - 23900 (4 tries)
Zcistan -17000 (3 tries)
Maos - 15000 ( 6 tries)