FREE TODAY – Battle for Vesta

by john on Mar.25, 2010, under Uncategorized

Battle for Vesta is free today thanks to FreeAppADay.com. Go grab it for cheap, and then tell your friends.

6 comments for this entry:

Navang Oza
March 25th, 2010 on 12:12 pm
Hey Jon,

Great app, love it a lot. I’d like to chat with you about monetizing you app. We’re the largest mobile ad exchange: we enable over 20 ad networks to reach targeted inventory across over 7,000 apps. We focus on maximizing revenue for developers by giving them complete control of their app inventory.

Can we set up a call and discuss this further sometime soon?
oroku saki
March 30th, 2010 on 12:25 pm
I love space sims. I’d have to say BfV is pretty good. I also have a few suggestions, if I may:

- Targeting brackets might be brighter or bolder; I can barely tell the difference between my wingmen and the enemy. Maybe red for enemies (though that’s like most games), green for wingmen.

- perhaps a sensitivity option for control; I’d prefer to not have to swipe completely across the screen so many times just to turn around; otherwise, I like the idea of the entire screen being available for control. Between you and me, I hate using the accelerometer for control in games; it’s rarely done right and it skews my view of the screen. Yours is good.

- throttle/shield indicators: maybe the throttle can be an underlay of blue filling the throttle control on the right, then the shield can be at the top. My thumb hides most of the bottom of the screen. I think this idea is similar to a pre-2.1 version, where shield was on the left and throttle on the right. What is that throttle icon?

- The box that indicates direction and distance to targets jumps around when you aim right at a very distant target. Also, in an earlier version, there’s a red dot instead. I think I might like that better than the box.

- afterburner? Then I wouldn’t have to mess with the throttle quite so much when I’m trying to be nimble

- hmm, yeah, more variety in enemies, mission objectives, reason for mining beyond shield strength and backstory… having huge cruisers that require systematic destruction of systems would be cool

Rock on. Thanks for your work on the game. It is fun.
john
April 2nd, 2010 on 12:17 am
oroku,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write. I apologize for the slow reply.

I will make targeting brackets brighter.

How about a non-linear response for the swipe control? So a fast swipe across the screen moves it more than the slow swipe across the same distance.

The throttle icon is meant to be flames coming out of your thrusters. I will consider moving the indicator bars around.

The radar is jumpy at a distance. This is because my math for the radar isn’t great, but it also helps you judge distance so I left it in.

I had afterburners in for a while and decided the throttle was better. Haven’t tried the combo but it would complicate the interface. I’ll think about ways to do it that would be relatively simple.

I have been thinking about ways to make larger ships out of small pieces. Just haven’t had time to implement it. No promises on that one.

Also, once you’ve beaten the game and gotten the new weapon gathering crystals becomes more worthwhile…
oroku saki
April 2nd, 2010 on 11:58 am
John,

Hey, no problem in replying.

And they are just suggestions; you don’t have to implement any of them.

Yeah, I think a non-linear swipe might be a good solution.

No, I agree that the radar is useful. Leaves more room for flight when there isn’t a separate tiny window that shows target positions (that sims on other platforms have room for on the screen). It’s a good compromise. Overall, the interface works well.

Afterburners might be fit into a button at the bottom right corner, squeezing the current throttle control up a bit to make the room (I think the width should remain as it is). Really, for me, it’d be a solution to minimizing inertial drift when turning 180 degrees, like when following an enemy that just passed you from a head-on path. But it’s not necessary. I just jack up the throttle for the current solution, but it’s still sort of slower than I’d prefer. [shrug]

I look forward to whatever changes you decide to implement. Including just playing it, ’cause it’s cool.
john
April 3rd, 2010 on 3:40 pm
oroku,

I really appreciate the suggestions. Clearly you’ve had the game for a while and you’ve seen the improvements. Many of those changes are the direct result of suggestions from players. I’ve tried to be very responsive. The one thing that everybody wants that I can’t do right now is multiplayer, because there are several design choices that I made while making the game that assumed single player. So adding that would require a big re-write. But outside of that I try to do things that people request.
john
April 3rd, 2010 on 3:40 pm
I should add that long term I’d like to add multiplayer, but I just don’t have time to do so right now.