As long as it doesn't go blurry on retina displays, I'm in. I didn't like how Game Dev Story felt like an obvious mobile game port so Star Command can be my introduction to this type of game
Wow. That's a tough one? The personal pref on that could run the gambit. I would say either make it a difficulty setting maybe? Like if you play on expert then you get a certain number of continues intermediate you get certain check points and beginner it's save save save anytime. Don't know if this would be feasable. But if you could lose things that take you a long time to cultivate too easy than that could really turn folks off. So I think if your able make it a bit of a choice for the Gamer. Its kind of hard without really knowing the nuts and bolts of the gameplay what is best.
Game Dev Story is much better for not having any save/restore feature. Of course, in that game there's also no way that a single bad decision can have everyone in your company killed.
I would go with a number of saves or save points. I would originally say no save points like back in mario days once your lives are done back to square one LOL. Save anytime would be to easy and no saves would be too hard so I think that would be the middle and fair.
IMHO, playing on an iPhone there is potential for interruption at any time, so I would dfinately prefer save anywhere. What would happen If a call is received during a battle?
Oh yes yes yes please do add where a call, message or push notification does not interrupt the game or causes you to lose anything I hate that.
Allowing the game to be interrupted and resume from that point is obvious and should need no discussion. The question is whether to allow players to play on from a save point and then "reload" back to the previous save point. I think allowing too much of that can ruin this kind of game. Of course you can always have "easy" or "sandbox" levels that let you do whatever you want.
Another possibility is to have some kind of "karma" or the like that is gradually earned or accumulated in the game, that allows you to undo/back up from disasters, but only a limited number of times, so it becomes a resource to be managed. This would help deal with the "disaster wipes out your crew" problem, without unlimited reloads that change the game a lot.
Love this idea. Right now we have an interesting resource system with TAC, ENG and SCI being generated by your crew. This is great outside the box kind of stuff. A lot of people have brought up some very good points. Since it is mobile and the chance for interruption is very high, our vision for "live with it" may be sacrificed for playability and save anytime you want. We dont want it to be frustrating - but we do like consequences for your decisions. The resource based save system is very interesting though...
New Updates Also, for all the regular TA users, how would you prefer screenshot/trailer updates? Change the first post? Just put it in the most recent post? Send a link out for our website/facebook page? Tell us TA, how can we cater to you? And would you like a foot massage? (please answer this, it is not rhetorical)
I prefer changing the first post easy to find and always there as oppose to the most recent post then comments are made and update status is lost forever in the forum pages LOL. Also facebook since were all following. As for the foot massage no thanks. The way to my heart is through videogames and food and lots of both!!!!
It's much better if you just update the first post as it's a lot easier to find that way. as for saving the game, perhaps have two different modes that can be changed in the menu. that way if you know that you're going to be playing the game while you're out or you know that there's a chance of interruption you can have save anywhere mode on, and then when playing at home or when you know you've got plenty of time you can have limited saves on.
Show us some nice screens and a teaser trailer. I can also change the first post for you if you want me too. Just tell me what you want me to add to it. A cold pastrami sammich would be nice. Yes, I would. Do you also do neck massages?
Maybe I just have issues but I really have mixed feelings regarding save systems. I find I can't help but to abuse them when they are available. Maybe it is my ideal of trying for perfection - for example I find that in games that let you save and reload at will I'll reload all the time just to do something "better". So lately I've been playing games that intentionally don't have "save anywhere" mechanisms or they only have auto-saves at certain points of the games. This lets me just relax and enjoy the game and not worry about saving. I know that sounds wierd and it's probably a disease. My personal vote is for a system that auto-saves at certain game-killing points of the game, but no real method of saving the game manually and reloading simply due to a bad (but non-game-killing) decision being made. So that way, if you are entering some dangerous portion of the game that could compromise your entire game should you fail or be unprepared for (a ship to ship battle perhaps) then I believe the game should auto-save for you right before you're committed completely to the challenge. That way, if you get killed then your game will reload from right before the battle so you have the option of replaying that battle all over again or maybe even to take a different course of action (such as running away). If you succeed at the battle then the game autosaves so you don't have an option to "reload" from your last auto-save to "do better". For all the other non-game-killing game sections the game doesn't give you an option of saving manually and reloading - for example, if you lose an individual crew member or find you've hired the wrong crew member or lost your entire landing party on the planet - boo f'in hoo. You're just out of luck and have to deal with the consequences. Thankfully this seems like the sort of game that lets you deal with such a bad decision and learn from it - that is you might have to just do some more exploring or whatever to rebuild back from the loss. So that's how I'd personally like to see things done - the ability to reload prior to a game-killing part of the game, but otherwise you should not have any ability to save and reload just because you wanted to do something "better" or different. Or - at the very least - if you have an option to "redo" something better or differently then some "karma" system is used so that you have to really think about when to invoke your karma and reload to keep you from abusing it. Or maybe I just need some psychological help...
That could be true, but part of it also is that when the game has save-and-reload built into it, then the designer and the testers know that, and they use it, and the difficulty tends to get adjusted so that you really have to use it. While, if you design a game without it, then you are more careful to provide that good play can avoid the need for it. This issue goes all the way back to Wizardry 1, which I first played in 1981. It was originally designed to have no save feature, but if you turned the game off when things went wrong you would revert to your last "save". And this was essentially unavoidable because you could get surprised by 30 Level 9 Mages, all of whom would Fireball you before you could do anything....
Another interesting point, and something I personally hadn't considered. Personally, I also use saves as a "crutch": saving before a difficult point and then assessing the final results and deciding weather or not to reload and do "better". But I had not considered the idea that the game was built around that idea. Even in beta testing, the exploits would show themselves and you would, like DaviddesJ said, compensate for that in the game design. So to DaviddesJ's point, perhaps it's a better idea to just build the game around save points rather than constant saves. I suppose it would be easier to add a save on the fly feature if the game proves to be too difficult or frustrating, rather than work in the reverse. TA has some smart users. Keep the conversation going.
