Awesome! I was also wondering where you could find the license to pilot cruisers because I couldn't find that anywhere. Good luck on spreading the word!
Friends? Nope. Reviewers I know, or know how to get in touch with. TouchGen, Space Sector and Space Games Junkie (which would hit Gamers With Jobs). I'd only send people that can be confirmed as reviewers. Your cynicism blows my mind. All of my friends actually bought the game after playing it. Did all of yours?
spend 6 months dealing with jackasses here on the forums and you'll be as cynical as me. And yes... I got plenty of friends as well as others I wouldn't call friends to buy the game TYVFM.
Sucks that you've dealt with the entitled jackholes that tend to post around here, and it's made you bitter. I'd suggest you quit reading the forum if it's gotten you to the point that you believe everyone is a jackass around these parts. I'm glad you've gotten people to buy the game. That's great. Some people know the fight that binaryhelix is in, and are willing to help if they are able. Since there wasn't enough exposure, I know a few people, and know how to get in touch with a couple more. Is it a lot? Nope. Hell, I can't even guarantee they'll listen and do a review / give coverage. I can only say "I talked to some people, they might be sending you an email/PM/letter via USPS/Bat signal." Do I know any of these people personally? Nope. I've been doing market research for my own creation, and have compiled a list of names and email addresses to send emails to to try to get the word out. Least I can do is send an email to them and say "Hey, you should review this kickass game. It's sweet." Some reviewers require a promo code for a "review copy" of the game so they can review it. Standard fare in the industry. My fault for thinking that there was more exposure and sales. If I had known sooner, I would have acted sooner, but with much less information, since my research has ramped up in the last couple months.
there's enough people here on the forum that aren't jackasses to keep me posting... and yeah, I know it's 'standard fare in the industry' - I'm a reviewer...
Love the game. Wow I'm loving this game, best iPhone game I have ever owned. I have left a 5 star review. I'm studying game making so I will tell everyone at uni, not much but everything counts. You should offer 30 free. Copy's in exchange for iTunes reviews, unfortunately with a 3 star iTunes review it will denture buys. As I was saying what an Awesome game for a two man dev team, very nice work, just a few issues I have. Still no manuell :0 I rock up at a faction a hq they tell me what I get once, can't find that Info anywhere. Docking is horrible slow, warp Into system, click home onto dock, wait 2k away from dock stop, have too boost once more to get 100 meters closer to even dock. Crap. It scene have to skip, presto docked. Shits me to tears. The same goes for undocking, why can't I just shoos my warp from inside the dock then it does everything auto right upto and including when I'm 10k away from dock. For example I undock choose a warp position so it auto speeds me up to get too 10k distance, then at 10k it stops and does t warp so I have to re choose warp location. For the love of god why. Why not after I have warped into a system, I click approach dock button, ect normal approach. Then At 2.2 k it doesnt slow to a dead ####en stop but transitions into the docking loading screen. I shit docking cut scenes, no extra. Clicking for me, saves my. Batter and doesnt make me rage quit because it's so ####e. Annoying to do things so repetivly. Other than these great game, just polish it a little. Before you decide to add more Content.
It sucks to hear that you guys aren't breaking even. It really is a great game, if a bit rough around the edges. Heres to hoping sales pick up soon.
We have plenty of codes (and PC and Mac builds), just let me know which reviewers want 'em. By the way, I've been in contact with Space Sector and Space Game Junkie and have sent them PC builds. Space Sector seems to focus more on strategy space games, so the owner tells me, though he did leave open the door for a review down the road. (We're still "negotiating.") Space Game Junkie has had us on their review list since about January. He has been swamped by all the new games coming out it seems, but we may be getting close to the top of the pile. Have not had any luck with Rock Paper Shotgun, Touch Arcade, Slide to Play, or Touchgen. I'll try to get a copy to the Cynical Brit next. Maybe a Kickstarter campaign might help, too. Let me know if you need a review copy. Sweet, thanks! At this point, every bit helps. I don't know if such a strategy works or is wise. I'd rather not "pay" for a review if you know what I mean. The work on the manual is progressing, and we'll be sure to put up that information at least on the website. Thanks for this feedback (we've gotten it from a few others, too). The original idea was to give players more options, but it seems needlessly complicated, so this is one thing I'd like to fix with the next update. Thanks! We'll continue to improve it based on feedback.
OK, we're doing a big push to improve the UI and dogfighting mechanics for this next update. Let me know your thoughts on the following... Now, docking, gating and warping are continuous and you don't have to press the same button once you're within range. If you need to transit to warp limit range or within docking or gating range, then the ship will automatically do that first. So when you press the warp button, it'll ask you for the destination and then do everything to make it happen. You can also help the autopilot as usual by turning on the afterburner or using your micro warp drive. We're going to remove all the autopilot buttons like F)ollow, K)eep at distance, O)rbit, Dock/transit, Warp/transit, Gate/transit and put them into a new radial menu. This will significantly declutter the screen. You press a single button or key, and the radial menu pops up with the autopilots listed in the bottom hemisphere. The top hemisphere of the radial menu will now list your two wingmen and their controls: attack target, aid target, ignore target. It will also pause the game at this point letting you plan your strategy. We'll call this the "Wingman control and maneuvers" radial menu, or "wing & maneuvers" for short. While you're in the wing & maneuvers menu, you can also change target by selecting it from the Contacts list. I'd like to have the camera zoom to your target so you can see it, but am curious if you think this is a worthwhile feature to add. Another big change and one that will improve performance: we're going to add a single big red button for the laser and mass accelerator weapons and make these modules passive (no more having to click on each module). Each ship gets a free tech 0 laser which is good for limited mining in core security systems and perhaps act as a poor man's dogfighting laser. (The GalCOP regulations in the Dangerous universe require every space-worthy vessel to have at least a minimal laser and tractor beam to ward off debris, etc.) Then each laser module or mass accelerator module you add will increase the damage of this single laser and add specific elemental damage (EM/kinetic/gravitic). The thinking here is that having to press each module button to activate a laser is cumbersome. And with the red button always available even if the modules are currently hidden from view, this lets you dogfight much simpler. Each press activates a single cycle, or a double tap turns on auto-repeat. Should we give each ship a free tech 0 laser, or do you think this makes the mining too easy? The same principle will be used with gravitic bombs, but you won't get a free grav bomb launcher with each ship. Instead, you'll have to add at least one grav bomb module. But each grav bomb module you add will increase the strength and duration, and possibly decrease the cool down. Each grav bomb module will become passive (no individual buttons now) and be activated by a single button that is situated near the laser button. We're also considering using the radial menu for the module display and also pause the game when it is out, but will need feedback from players before we go this route. Do you think the radial menu for modules will reduce the clutter or will this one extra step slow down combat too much? Feedback welcome. Thanks, Linh
Those sound amazing and frankly, much needed. I really think that all you're missing with this title is some polish and streamlining, and then you'll see some serious attention. I really like this game, enough that I deleted GoF2. It's got mad depth and actually feels vast and mysterious, like space should/would, instead of the small sameness of GoF2 or that truly horrible Warpgate game. However, Dangerous is just so fiddly to play at points. I like to play games when a little buzzed, and the multiple steps for every little action are a buzzkill. Add in the ugly menus and things like the stretched splash screen and the bugs and the clipping during docking and through planets when warping, and yeah. It's got a niche, but in it's current state I feel that the only people who can look through all of the above are people who still fire up Frontier: First Encounters and/or Eve Online addicts. No offense meant. I really appreciate that this game exists for those times I have the patience for it and I further appreciate that you seem committed to honing it into something truly special.
Another suggestion: boarding sounds cool and all, but what would be even sweeter would be actual docking sequences and realistic surface to orbit transitions. Again, F:FE still might be the king in this regard. The transit from ground to space is sublime, with the glow of the sun in the atmosphere, and the planet receding below.
Hopefully you'll like the new update which tries to streamline the game where it is clunky and permits strategizing by adding in pauses. The clipping through planets during warp is intentional (and EVE does this, too). The reasoning is pseudo-technologically sound: During warp, space warps around the craft, so there is no damage even though you're passing through a planet. If we didn't do this, then having to plot a course around planets, moons, and stars would make navigation a nightmare. Even EVE with its incredible complexity didn't bother to change this, and you'll warp through everything in that game. The clipping through the station while undocking and docking has been reduced since you're supposed to appear outside of the station's physical extents, and docking is supposed to complete before you dive into the station itself. This could probably be improved further. At some point, we'd like to turn on the colliders again, so ship and station collisions would be possible. This was in an early build, but for performance reasons with the autopilots, we took it out. In fact, we had plans for a collision shield module, so you could go around ramming ships and inflict massive kinetic damage. Hopefully we can add it down the road. A game of this complexity took longer to debug than we hoped, but now that that task is mostly done, we are able to concentrate more on the aesthetics and streamlining the experience more. No offense taken! We love feedback because it gives us a chance to improve the game even more. It's not a direct clone since we've simplified fitting (there is no CPU or power grid restrictions, primarily it's energy based with penalties for incorrect sizes). It's also a single player game where we simulate the "MMO" with NPC ships that are autonomous agents and are persistent. So the world keeps ticking even when you're docked inside a station. There are three damage types/resistances (EM, Kinetic, and Gravitic), and only shields and armor (no separate hull HP). However, you can bring up to two AI wingmen with you who each have specialized skills and ships. The enemies can and do equip the same modules as you, so I'd compare it more to EVE's PVP than its PVE missions. If you know EVE, you could easily jump into Dangerous. But you don't have to know EVE since we have a lengthy tutorial. Also, you can recruit corporate pilots who will fly trade or mining routes on your behalf. This part is similar in ways to X3. Our mining game has you directly shooting lasers at the asteroids, and the tractor beam is automatic. Part of the goal was to eliminate the boring time sinks you'd find in games like EVE where mining is a mind-numbingly boring grind. There's lots more like scanning for derelict ships and wormholes, a skill tree, large variety of missions including dynamic missions that affect existing NPC ships such as pirate attack, break down, and fake break downs. We also have an epic story with a dialog system like Mass Effect. We'd love to add all that since we ultimately want atmospheric entry/take off/landing, and are currently deciding whether to tackle ship boarding encounters or massively multiplayer next. But there's only two of us, so it will take longer to do compared to a typical company, unfortunately. But we'll keep on trucking along as long as we are able. We could definitely use some help in spreading the word about the game still, so please tell your friends and reviewers about Dangerous.
I like this game so much that I signed up to chime in - it is great to hear you are working on presentation aspects of the game because those matter a lot to iOS gamers who get bombarded by hundreds of games per month. You have to stand out and currently I unfortunately think you're not doing a good job with it. It's the little things too, for example, I think your app icon is utterly generic and says absolutely nothing about the game - it's a guy with a gun...I mean, that's really not what the game is really about, so why that icon? People will assume it's another generic shooter or whatever, and you've lost them there and then. The same could be said about the name (Dangerous...what is dangerous? It's incredibly generic and uninteresting), which you unfortunately can't change now but maybe you can add a nifty subtitle or something like that (Dangerous: Awesome Space Adventure...well not literally but you get the drift). It's those things that I find to be symptomatic of the larger game. There's lots of minor details that could be improved like the low-res space backgrounds, textures etc. Unfortunately you are directly competing with one of the most polished and graphically impressive titles on the App Store (GoF of course) and if I knew nothing about either game and had to choose, obviously I'd go with GoF - not because the graphics but because I feel you don't really emphasize how your game is actually much deeper or fun. Anyway, if you can manage to clean up the presentation, I feel it would help a lot. Of course a small indie team can only do so much compared with a large company...but the fight isn't quite lost yet. A Kickstarter campaign by the way won't help you get exposure - it should be the other way around - you should use existing exposure for a Kickstarter campaign to improve the game / do a sequel / etc. The problem is you've already got a product out - so it would only make sense for a vastly improved sequel, I guess.
Part of the reason for the icon is the game's storyline is character-driven, and we've had plans all along to have an on-foot portion of the game. The original name was "Dangerous: Null Space". And of course, the very beginning of the game explains the name. But we hear ya. We may yet talk to the artist to see if he can give us a more spacey icon and splash image. I think it's harder for a game like Galaxy on Fire 2 to improve their core mechanics to be as deep and fun as Dangerous whereas we keep improving our presentation with each update. The new radial menus in the upcoming update should radically improve the player experience. We are also adding in options, so people can keep the old interface if they like the instant access or have a large screen and don't mind the clutter (prefer function over form). Also, let us know if you have ideas on how we can emphasize that our game is much deeper and fun. If you have any specifics, let us know. We'll keep improving the game based on specific feedback. There are several major improvements that the Kickstarter campaign could be used for: new and improved ship models, highly polished first- or third-person shooter element, and massively multiplayer. If nothing else, the campaign might get us more notice which is a good thing even if the campaign doesn't succeed. We're also able to update the "message of the day" which appears when people first start the game so alert them to the Kickstarter campaign, so hopefully existing fans can help here. The space dust visuals work better when the ship is not moving super fast. We'd like to add more like dust clouds and dust streaks in a future update. These should make the speed appear much more significant. But keep in mind a game like GoF2 is able to make it seem like you're moving because they intentionally keep your ship's speed low whereas ships in Dangerous can easily move move than 1 km/s. So it's more challenging, but hey, challenge accepted.
Thx for the update Gday hijacking is working well now after last update thank you,but just to let you know the shaders are not working again , I have an ipad2 os 5.1 , it's the same as before the shader fix, Sounds like some great improvements coming , looking forward to trying them out Cheers
What I noticed after some testing on my iPad2 is that the textures start out OK, but after a time, the black textures return. We'll have to dig further on this frustrating shader problem. One thing you can do in the meanwhile is change to use the "unlit" shader. Good to know the hijacking fix worked.
BinaryHelix, when are the new radial menus coming? Has the update been submitted or are you planning on submitting it in the following days/weeks? Also, did you get to implement the "save anywhere" feature? Are you planning on implementing it? Thanks
We hope to finish the radial menus & laser and submit the update by the end of next week if all goes to plan, but it's a fairly substantial change, so the date might slip. We have the "save anywhere" on our gigantic To Do list, but it is actually a very involved change that requires breaking down all quests into different stages/states. At this point, I'd rather try to get either the boarding aspect or some form of multiplayer done first (after the radial menus). Most games in this genre seem to use the station as a natural save point (Galaxy on Fire 2, X3, Elite, etc), so it feels more like a luxury than a must have.
