I created Comet Blaster to explore a unique mechanic that I've never experienced in depth while using an iPhone. I imagined the mechanic late one night while playing with the icons on my iPad. The mechanic is simple, but powerful - touching in one area of the screen while simultaneously touching another to create a line between the two points. I created this video to show off what I've been working on. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Comet Blaster Update Here is an update on my iPhone game Comet Blaster. I've quit my day job to work on Comet Blaster full time. Comet Blaster is now my day job, I feel this is the only way I can truly create something great. I've created around 100 levels (skies) with 6 different game elements. The more I've worked at this the more I realize the ultimate goal is to create the most engaging experience possible. I don't think anyone will enjoy or be truly fulfilled by anything that's an artificial filler, so I've gone through each level carefully and reduced the number of skies to 30. That will give a 15 - 30 minute engaging experience as apposed to a 1 - 2 hour good/okay experience. I have the next 15 or so skies all drawn up, but I want to see how these 30 go before I continue building. There are currently two galaxies with slightly different colorations to provide variance containing 15 skies. You must obtain a high enough star rating to move to the next galaxy. Comet Blaster will be free. It will offer a few in-app purchases, so I don't go completely broke . You'll have the ability to purchase hints on skies to help you earn 3 stars, you can buy your way to the next galaxy if you haven't earned enough stars, and make a donation to me. The app will be ad-free (NO ADS, I HATE ADS) and will not contain any hidden bullshit to make you pay money. I'm currently just finishing up the final in-app purchases and working out the final bugs. Trying to launch this thing as soon as possible! Wish me luck while I finish this up . Here are recent images from the game.
This looks pretty good... Loving your payment model too. I'll definitely download this when it comes out, if it will run on a 3Gs, of course.
thanks Thanks for the feedback. I'm wondering too how it'll work on a 3Gs. I have a beta copy I could send you later today or tomorrow if you want to sign up on testflight here: http://tflig.ht/gRS1na we could check it out and I could make any necessary tweaks.
Nice to see this thread pop up again; I'm impressed with the gameplay mechanic, and can imagine that a lot of variety could go into this title. Hope that your spot testing goes well, and you'll be able to let this go out soon!
Thank you for the nice comment and encouragement. You have no idea how much a few kind words or critical feedback can help when you're pouring your soul into something. The last thing I want is dead silence . I'm feeling like it's about 90% ready to launch. Should be able to push to apple in about a week, which means it should be available in a week or two. I'll keep you guys updated on this thread. Sent you the Beta last night, sorry about the delay, I'm super picky, and didn't want to send it out with any major bugs. This is the 4th round of Beta testing. I checked a few things out and it is compatible with 3Gs and above. The problem is, is I'm primarily using an iPhone 5, so in comparison there could be some performance issues, but we'll see. Hoping for the best. If there are performance issues, I can always reduce the amount of details on older devices. I have been designing for the different screen sizes so that shouldn't be an issue. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Ready to Launch Over the past few weeks I've been focused on learning as much as I can once I release Comet Blaster. This first launch in my mind is a final product, but I want to treat it as an experiment. One big things I've done is built my own custom analytics. I've been trying to build the analytics around all of the problems I can foresee. That may not be so bad, but I realized I've already come up with hypothesis to fix the problems that I'm expecting. Part of the reason I've done this is because Apple's App release cycles are so slow. I think in reality my thinking is going to deep and is wasteful. I need to create a control group for my experiment and exam the problems. I'm going to work hard the next two days and submit the game to Apple, so expect to see Comet Blaster in the store in about a week!
Comet Blaster 1.0 Now Available Comet Blaster is now available https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/comet-blaster/id635730659?ls=1&mt=8 I'd appreciate if you could download it and rate it, it's free! I'm also very interested in feedback so I can improve it.
Congrats on the release! I'd recommend this game to anyone who is hesitating whether to get this or not. I'll leave a review on the AppStore. PS: make a thread in "iPhone and iPod touch games". I also have to thank you that you let me beta test it; thanks for that
Thank you! I'm working on fixing some of the lag on the explosions with older devices and almost have the next galaxy complete! Good point - started a new thread here http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=2958480#post2958480 Thank you! It's already getting some good traction.