Archangel: Vengeance of the Makuzi Ascendancy for the iPad!

BeyondtheTech

Well, I hope their cutoff is slow. With only 90 minutes of sleep over the past 24 hours, I redid my original Torque-powered Archangel space tactical shooter game in GameSalad. According to iTunes Connect, it was recorded as submitted it at 5:11PM, just a few minutes past the supposed deadline. Talk about rushing to the very end.

Granted, this remake is a proof-of-concept, but what a hell of a test it was for me. I started the recreation of this game in GameSalad at 1AM this morning. For a game that originally took 54 days to create in Torque (granted, that included music and graphic development), being able to bring the core of the game up in about a day is nothing short of impressive on GameSalad's part. Developing remains awesome in the GS world. Thanks to everyone here.

I was rushing so much that I know I have to clean up a lot of stuff, but for the most part, the game is feature complete. I hope to get my iPad in a couple of days, so we'll really see how my game actually performs in a real-world scenario.

Screenshots to come.

BeyondtheTech

Woohoo! 5:47PM. It's "In Review!" Cross your fingers!

BeyondtheTech

Even after the initial rush of completing 1.0, I was destined to "finish" the game by adding some much-needed features I wasn't able to squeeze in by the deadline, plus resolve some glaring bugs and issues I found after 1.0 was stuck "In Review."

Version 1.1 has since been submitted with an expedited review request to Apple.

Screenshots here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beyondthetech/sets/72157623635600413/

In the meantime, please feel free to download a free copy of the game, and hold off on any reviews until 1.1 is out for download. If you grab a code, please mention it here as a courtesy to others.

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Thanks, everyone. GS is truly a remarkable engine.

Crazybreadman

Cool. I took JJXXHNHKLYTH. Good luck w/ launch sales!

quantumsheep

I won't take one of these as the iPad's not out over here. Will probably get it though once I have an iPad.

The iPhone version was good fun while it lasted (though I thought that changing your shield/engine/phaser stuff should have paused the game, allowing you to make more tactical decisions).

BTT - I was going to ask how the creation went using GS - as you say, getting the core up and running in a day is amazing. Congrats on that!

JamesZeppelin

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thanks dude!!

BeyondtheTech

Well, I walked in and bought my iPad. Right in the store, I downloaded my game via the App Store.

Looks like the multitouch doesn't work, so the ship can't even fire. So much for trying to build for a device that I didn't have while developing.

How did I get approved?! Ugh.

I pulled it until I can get it working again.

quantumsheep

Heh - being in the UK we don't have the iPads yet - which would make me very nervous about developing for it as I can't own one yet!

Bugs will always get through though - that's just how it is. Good of you to remove the app till it's fixed, and best of luck with that!

Cheers,

QS

BeyondtheTech

Ok, the fixes are done and is being resubmitted as 1.1. Wish me luck!

synthesis

So is Archangel built with GS? If so...its quite a deep game for GS...Well Done.
I bought the iPod version the other day to try it out. Its a bit confusing as to what to do at first...it took me about an hour to figure it out.

After that...I found its really difficult. But the graphics are very rich and the game play seems to be very broad and quite expansive. The sector board is cool (once I found it.).

I recommend you build a tutorial sequence at the beginning. I think that would go a LONG way to helping players out. Additionally, I think you should make the ships a little easier to kill...seems like they swarm and really give you little room to maneuver. lastly, the end of game pause seems too long.

But other than that...the game is really good and the menu systems and audio package are first rate. Keep up the excellent work!

BeyondtheTech

`Archangel: VMA for the iPad` is not a complete recreation of `Archangel: FGC for the iPhone.`

Archangel: VMA is mission-based, going from sector to sector after completing it (much like GS games' scenes would be), whereas Archangel: FGC was a bit more freeform by having to choose a sector to warp to.

The essential gameplay is there, tapping to turn and accelerate, shift-tapping for firing. But, where Archangel: FGC gave you full control of power distribution and repairs, Archangel: VMA is more automatic and seamless. No need to activate and deactivate shields. No engineering control.

I did implement jumping within the sector, which is great for getting out of tough spots. Voices have not been implemented in this version, but I plan to do it in the next version, along with an actual scoring and timing system, both of which Archangel: FGC doesn't have.

One could say that the iPad version is a "lite" version from the original iPhone version, but I found that a lot of my iPhone customers didn't really use those features, which was really code-intensive (and therefore impacted the game's overall performance and speed).

Also, as GameSalad suffers from limitations in attribute handling (can't access another actor's attributes, no arrays), it makes it very difficult to do build the galaxy dynamically as I did in the iPhone version using Torque.

Regarding Archangel: FGC, I agree that the pause after the ship blows up and between warping sectors was a bit long. I was working on an update for it when Torque got updated with a new development team and released a new version, plus Apple released a few updates to the SDK on their own. One thing changes, another thing breaks. I don't know if it's me or my code, but putting the whole game together was a real pain in the neck. The frustration level got so high, I shelved Torque and went to GameSalad and their one-button publishing method. Wow, what a difference that makes. I can actually create a game instead of worrying about coding and compiling issues.

If Archangel: VMA turns out to be more successful than its predecessor, I plan to keep building on it and also release an iPhone version to "replace" Archangel: FGC. Because GameSalad appears to require their own certificate for signing (I asked why in another thread, don't recall if I got an answer), I may not be able to provide the new GameSalad rendition as a free update to Archangel: FGC owners.

quantumsheep

I think you should leave A: FGC as it is. It's a solid game on its own.

Anything else you do could be a sequel, a side-game. I don't know. The universe you've created can house so many adventures. Why replace FGC? Why not ADD to the universe with a new game

Unlike films, sequels to games are generally improvements on the original. I say 'generally' because I can think of a few that aren't

Good luck fella.

QS

BeyondtheTech

Thanks, QS.

AND. WE. ARE. LIVE!

Well, the 1.1 update got approved, so I'm just waiting for it to show up in the App Store. Man, I'm excited. At least the game works this time. Looks like I was in time for the launch, but with no real way of testing my game without a device, it was my fault and messed up the logic.

Let's see how 1.1 plays out. If anyone needs more codes, please let me know. Thanks.

quantumsheep

Congrats, glad you got it sorted!

I don't know *when* I'll be getting an iPad. Perhaps this is the wrong place to ask for testers, but if some of you already have the device, it'd be useful to get feedback on upcoming titles for those of us without them!

Best of luck with it, sir - hope you're successful with it!

QS

CodeMonkey

P94XKXHHPMRE taken for promo videos, etc. Thanks.

EDIT: My favorite game now!!! Blame BTT if GameSalad updates are late. j/k.

BeyondtheTech

Got a promo code for the Pro membership? How about T-shirt then?



Anyway, in my haste, I forgot to post the iTunes App Store link to the game, so here it is:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/archangel-vengeance-makuzi/id365606367?mt=8#

And, here's my post on TouchArcade's forum:

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=984910

quantumsheep

Promo videos my ****

BeyondtheTech

Hey, thanks, CM! Coming from you, that's very reassuring.

Version 1.2 is en route. Voiceovers and a scoring system. The iPad ROCKS, I have to get another one.

quantumsheep

0_o

Fancy picking one up for me? It'll probably be a lot cheaper than buying one here...

CodeMonkey

I'm a Star Trek geek and used to play netrek. But I'll give you a promo code for one(or two) of my ipad games if I eventually have time to finish one instead of use it for testing.

BeyondtheTech

Live long and prosper, then!

It's obvious that "Archangel" has been my ode to the beloved Trek franchise.

Looking forward to Star Trek XII!

EDIT: CM and everyone else, would it be too much to ask if you could post a review and rating for my game?

CodeMonkey

I will give some ratings. It might be the itunes store that has a delay because it says I can not rate it unless I own it. Once that is fixed, I'll post something.

CodeMonkey

I do have one comment about the game that I thought could use some improvement. The volume controls I didn't like pressing many times to get it to the right volume I wanted.
I would have rather pressed on one part of the volume and have it adjust to that percent.

You would need to use the mouse position, and the actor's position and width as reference for when it is touched to adjust volumes accordingly.

Everything else is just awesome.

BeyondtheTech

Understood, thanks.

The title and options screens, I'll admit I was rushing to finish. I did use the slider feature in Spellcaster, but since GS doesn't have the ability to grab code from another program (hint hint!), I just used a Touch Rule to loop the value.

The slider will definitely be going in for 1.2 along with the other tweaks I'm working on.

butterbean

Do you have any more promos? This looks amazing!

BeyondtheTech

Are all the codes out? I posted 10 more on TouchArcade, see link above.

betazero

Hey I just bought your game for the iPad. Very cool. The asteroid level is painful

BeyondtheTech

Just in case anyone is interested, I made Friday the 13th a special day by giving out Archangel: FGC for the iPhone and Archangel: VMA for the iPad for free on the App Store. I figured with sales a little on the low side (about 30 per day) with no recent promotion or advertising, it's worth an attempt.

10,000 copies were downloaded that day. I even got some

It's only one day after the sale, and my numbers and revenue doubled for all my apps.

Food for thought.

quantumsheep

Congrats - I don't have an iPad, but downloaded it anyway as it looks like a quality game - loved the iphone version

Nice to see you post again too