WIP: Our first game on the Store!

#1 A screenshot:

#2 Looks really good!

#3 Thanks :).

#4 I can't get past the loading screen on my iPhone 2g. I think it's getting killed because of the long load time. :(

I'll try it out later on my iPad.

#5 Hi David,

we tested the game with ad hoc distribution also on 2G (ipod 2nd gen, iphone 3G and 3GS) and it worked fine but for some reason the version compiled for the Apple has slower loading time. Other users had the same problem, we are trying to understand what it can cause this and make an updated version.

May I ask you which OS you have on your 2G?

Never tried on iPad, it will be nice to hear from you how it looks like!

Thank you,
Selvin

#6 I can confirm also that it looks great on an iPad :) WRT slow loading times, we seem to suffer badly on the older devices and it seems to be hit and miss - IWT now has over 90,000 users for whom it loads fine, there are however, a number of users for whom the app just will not load, primarily 3G users and it is very difficult to get to the bottom of it.

#7 Hi Scott, thanks for trying on iPad :).

Regarding the loading times, from what you are saying it sounds there is nothing we could do.

I tried to split the scripts file to load across the three splash screen but it gets stuck before even getting into the first splash.

Another strange thing I noticed is that on my 3GS with OS 4.0.2 the games feels a bit slower.

#8 Hi Selvin,

My iPhone is running 3.0 (7A341). I tried it out on my iPad and it looks great! It doesn't scale as nice as some other games in 2x mode though. If it's not a huge amount of work for you, you may want to release a HD version for the iPad.

Thanks,

Dave

#9 @Scott, what's WRT and IWT?

#10 IWT I assume
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/invaders-world-tour/id349893114?mt=8

#11 David,
I can ask our artists but I don't think they will like the idea :).
For our next game we should buy an iPad so we can make the 2 versions in parallel that is the easier way. They do everything in 3D and then they create the 2D version in the format needed.

#12 Sorry Jeramy79, WRT is with regards to and IWT (as Selvin correctly spotted) is invaders World Tour - our first Torque app.

#13 @Selvin, yeah we tried splitting the scripts, guis etc etc with no real success on the older devices. With our upcoming 3.0 release it is evan worse as we got lots more stuff. It loads slow (but does load) on all iPod Touches, iPhone 3GS and iPhone4 and is quickest to load on the iPad, but NOT on the 3G!! I'm at the point where I think i'll just put up a disclaimer on iTunes along the lines of "Please don't purchase if you have an iPhone 3G".

Most of the negative comments and ratings for IWT (I'm sure) are from 3G users.

#14 @Scott, I just tried IWT and you done a very good job! I'm surprised to see some many objects on the screen and the performance are good!
May I ask you if you use any special treatments for your sprites? For instance in our game the ship is a png image 256x64 (2 frames). We never actually tried performance with PVR compression because the quality decrease considerably.

#15 Selvin, thanks for the IWT feedback :) I (like many others on here) have been around the tweaking / performance loop many, many times - there are a lot of threads about how to improve performance, PVR was a big win on the older devices, less so on 3GS+ All of the invaders sprites are standard 16 bit sprites bundled into one large sprite sheet (256x256) and I use source rectangle to pick them out. Simple stuff like switching off blending for your backgrounds will help improve performance if you haven't already done so.

I didn't notice any performance issues playing your game on the iPad but those lovely backgrounds might be an issue on older devices.

This is a good thread to have a read for tips on performance etc:
www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/111591

#16 Scott, thanks for the link, very useful. There are some points I didn't know about and I can give it a try.

At the moment our game is OK with performance, but we had several suggestions that speeding up the ship and the robot-walk will make the gameplay better. To do so I need to make sure the frame rate stay at an acceptable level and we may need to work on the images.

#17 What graphics editing tools are you guys using for these games? Illustrator and/or Fireworks?

#18 In WIP almost everything was done in 3D using Cinema4D. Then Photoshop to give the 2D look you see in the game.

#19 Hi guys, just to let you know we made an upgrade to WIP (now version 1.1) and I'd like to say thanks the community, especially Scott. His link on how improving performances was very useful allowing a faster game play (I doubled the speed of the ship) and added more obstacles and a new bonus type (the barrier).

Here the list:

* Performance improvements.
* Faster space buses.
* New meteors.
* New space ships.
* Barrier bonus.
* New challenge mode soundtrack.
* New game icon!
* Exit Game bug fixed.

I hope you will have another go with the updated version.

Next challenge OpenFeint :) and more gameplay additions.

#20 hey I've played with the new version of WIP and it's so beautiful, faster and more exciting good Job ;-)