Rescue the Monsters for iOS

Conifer_Apps

It's finally here! After a long time of bug fixes, learning, and art creation, my first game titled "Rescue the Monsters" is finally here. It may not be perfect, but I'd love it if you would download, share, and tell me what you think all the same. If you download the app I'd love it if you gave me some feedback and or shared it . Thanks >- !
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App Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rescue-the-monsters/id765075361?ls=1&mt=8

allc1865

Hope you do well with sales!

pHghost

Took KH46J3T66FMN, will give feedback when I have time to play!

jacob2805

awesome game.
good job hard work paid off!!!

pHghost

@Conifer_Apps I have loads of problems with the game: dunno about @jacob2805, but I probably wouldn't take him too seriously as this seems to be his one and only post on theses forums.

Here is what I think you should focus on.

A) Main menu. The bouncing menu items make it frustratingly hard to select the option that you want. If it is meant to show off the GameSalad physics engine, this is definitely not the place. It will alienate your customers at best, have them ask Apple for a refund at worst.

Touch recognition. Easily the biggest issue with the game. You don't need to tap the monster for it to register 'tapped.' Frequently, I'm tapping a monster, and three monsters next to it get 'tapped' and are destroyed as well. Which is a huge problem since you are supposed to avoid tapping certain monsters. All in all this makes the game completely futile and pointless, because the main game mechanic is broken. Make sure that the size of the actor that registers the tapping is not larger than the visible actor. Even if something is alpha-ed out and you don't see it, still it detects collisions and taps etc.

C) Monster overlap. All the time, monsters are spawned over each other. In the end, this also breaks the game mechanic. If you tap a point on the screen, every actor at that location registers a tap, not only the one in the front. This means if a 'bad' monster is right behind a 'good' monster, you always lose -- either you tap and lose points for tapping the 'bad' one, or you let them fall and lose points for not tapping the 'good' one.

D) Scene orientation. The nature of this game, with items falling from the top and you having to tap them before they fall all the way down, are generally better suited for a portrait orientation, where you have more clarity and time to figure out what to do. Of course, it is possible to do it in landscape as well, but the game usually turns into a into a pointless tap as quickly all over the place thing rather than an actual game you enjoy.

The first three points absolutely need your attention if you want the game to have some authentic good reviews, D) is a matter of opinion and just a mere suggestion.

Hope this feedback helps.

Conifer_Apps

@pHghost thanks for the honest feedback. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix the overlapping? I tried using collision for the actors but that just makes it too difficult because they are bouncing all over the place. Another idea I had was when the spawning engine spawned a monster in a specific spot, it would change an attribute to a specific range around where the monster spawned. The next monster to spawn would not spawn within that range. When it did, it would set the attribute to where another range restarting the cycle. Any thoughts if that would work or how to improve upon it? And @jacob2805 @allc1865 thanks for commenting as well.

pHghost

Here is a video from GSHelper's @tshirtbooth which deals with avoiding actor overlap:

It probably isn't EXACTLY what you need, because his method works with the fact that you spawn a number of actors and then the spawning stops -- and you NEVER ever use the same location twice within one run. For you, with continuous spawning, you'll need to revisit a spawn point sooner or later, or you'll run dry.

What you can do though, is to take his method as a starting point to give you some inspiration, and see if you can adapt it to your needs.

For example:

Use only one column in the table (unless you want to vary the Y as well) and space it by 20 points (or 10, if you want). Depending on the size (width) of your actor, when a monster gets spawned, destroy not only the row at the index, but a corresponding amount of rows above and below as well. Based on the speed of your spawning, and the speed of the monsters' fall, repeatedly reload the master table into the active table with a timer.

So, in essence, while you will use @tshirtbooth's method of eliminating locations where monsters would overlap, the timer reload will reenable those locations once the monsters are gone.

Of course, this method is not 100% perfect, because the last and first monster around the timer reload can still end up overlapping, but the likelihood of it happening is generally much smaller, and you will definitely reduce overlap by a wide margin overall.