Wednesday 18 November 2009

Thanks the Lord it is OUT!

Today MiniSquadron is out and LIVE for you to buy on the AppStore! Amazing stuff - I have to thank everyone who has helped on it - mostly Dave "the bearded one" Ferner for providing a lot of the art. I'll probably do some behind-the-scenes pokes at the people who have all contributed but first I must grab some sleep. Why am I so tired you may ask (or not)? Have I been partying all night in my pants? No! I have instead been submitting news and writing emails all day to various websites and publications to advertise the fact that MiniSquadron is out. This, my friends is the Second War in game development - one that is AS important as the First War (making the actual game).

I shall write more once I recover brains - for now - SLEEP!

16 comments:

  1. Well done, sir! Sleep well and don’t expect any comments on this blog—we’re all playing MSq now! :-)

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  2. Congratulations, Tak! Tried to buy it, but it requires 3.0 firmware, which I haven't installed yet. I'll get it later! :)

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  3. Great work!

    It is an impressive feat to get anything complete, polished, and in the app store. 4 months, 4 weeks, doesn't matter.

    The game is awesome. I have a strong feeling that it will be featured by Apple.

    Best of luck in the second war!

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  4. Hi

    I was really looking forward to playing this. I've just bought it but it won't launch.

    After tapping to launch I see the icon appear in the middle of the screen and then it disappears and I am back to the phone's Home screen.

    I have also restarted the phone and still have the problem.

    Please help.

    Thanks.



    Best,
    Matt.

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  5. Nice work Tak. Very fun playing game that's easy to pick up and looks great. Looking forward to multi-player with my son this weekend.

    BTW the look and sound of the game is pitch-perfect.

    Harland

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  6. Boing Boing mentioned yer app today

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  7. Yeah I saw! BoingBoing is something special - that really means somethign and I'm dead chuffed!! Doing this right now around the room ->

    ⊂二二二( ^ω^)二⊃ < flying >

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  8. Great to see the gameplay is so fluid & responsive & "pick-up & play". The stalling is an integral part to it & can be used to get a few cheeky shots off, just like Biplanes on the Amiga! The lack of mid-air collisions works well unless you bump head-on?

    Immensely catchy game & stuffed with loads of "Game Candy" moments eg collectables, power-ups, flashing msgs & the works. Music does work so well.

    So multiplayer is local wifi & is that only 2 players at a time? I wonder if >2 players over internet/local wifi is ever workable - that would be quite amazing...

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  9. Just a follow up on my last comment to say that Tak has been extremely helpful in identifying the problem I had with launching the app.

    And it turns out it was my problem, just had to download it again.

    Great game, love it.

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  10. minisquadron is bloody brilliant. i've unlocked all the planes except the sunset lagoon, wave 2, score 20000 one, which i'm guessing requires patiently pegging the flying turtles in wave one until your score gets high enough.

    what i'd like to see in the game is the ability to buy additional islands in the game for 99 cents each, which would allow one to play more levels and unlock more planes. the expansion possibilities are nearly endless. for additional "classes" of aircraft you could have everything from ornithopters to autogyros to blimps.

    the focus on air to air combat is great, but it would also be fun to have some ground based "bosses" to strafe. tanks, aircraft carriers, you name it. anything that can roll out to some impressive music for one to shoot at while sweeping dangerously low to the ground.

    anyway, brilliant game and worthy of expansion.

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  11. Congrats man! This is a very fun game.

    A few comments/questions
    any chance you might make it so that you can play it horizontal holding the phone the other way? The headphone jack interferes with my fingers on a 3G iPhone and I tend to press the volume as well... I'd almost call this a "bug" rather than a feature request, but YMMV :-)

    On the more feature request side... it's hard to know at a glance what plane has good speed etc - if there were little stat graphs maybe, after you click the plane? Or even better yet, update a graph and put info on the screen with the full squadron planes itself, rather than having to go back and forth.

    Anyway, great job - it reminds me a bit of Time Pilot and its sequel... also with the stalling just a hint of the Biplanes mode of Triple Action for Intellivision...

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  12. Another "bug"/misfeature etc: I was playing along, being told I unlocked 3 or 4 craft, accidentally hit the "home" button, and realized nothing I had unlocked counted :-(

    Heh, reading some of the blog i see the Intellivision Biplanes connection was intentional :-)

    Speaking of retreads of old game, the mechanic here is similar (in parts) to Heatseeker, an old Compute's! Gazette game I humbly revived this February : http://kirkjerk.com/2009/02/22/

    The control scheme here was a neat choice - it works a bit better (I think) than most games that use a "virtual controlpad" - that's really a handicap for the iPhone/iPod touch for many types of games.

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  13. Hey kirkjerk - check the "Options" to Flip the screen!

    Thanks for the comments man - will work hard to improve where possible - and Heatseeker!!! Blimey!

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  14. Heh, yeah, I discovered the Option eventually on my own -- is it tough to make detection of that seamless, like lots of things to reset?

    Interesting, the strategies you have to employ to unlock more stuff... I dunno how feasible "gotta catch 'em all" is :-)

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  15. the best game i have play before...^_^
    i wanna replay this game but all plane will be locked now...
    Could it add a 'reset' plane at Option area ?
    my brother wanna play with it's own task...^_^

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  16. addictive game.it remembers me playing intellivision triple action when i was a chlid

    regards

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