iOS App Concept - WEB VERSION!

Hey guys, while my recently released game Gravity Swap is doing well and I am still quite invested in it's continuing development, I've been working on a new iOS project that I hope to release in the near future once the the other one's downloads slow down.

The game is currently called "Dash Grid", with a similar art style to Geometry Wars.
As the game is ultimately being designed for iOS, the controls are a bit different, but still quite easy.

I'm very interested in suggestions for additional enemy types and game modes.
- I'm trying to stay away from power-ups, but if someone has an amazing idea, I might try it out to see how it feels.
- It's a survival game, not a killing game, so I don't want the player to shoot.
- There are 4 leaderboards (one for each game mode, and one for total points) for iOS Game Center
- There are a number of achievements (High points reached in game modes, total points reached, hold 5 shield layers for 10 seconds, end a round with under 7000 points) in iOS Game Center
- - Deffinitely would like suggestions for more "fun" achievements.

Here are some screen shots:








Here's the link: Dash Grid

I'M A NINJA!!

Is there a speed limit? In other words, can you move faster by tapping the corners vs. the anywhere on the edges? What do you think about making a circular speed limit with radius equal to half the width of the phone screen, so that there's not an advantage to just zoom diagonally the whole time?

There is a circular speed limit in place, and the distance between ship and mouse when you reach the limit is fairly small (around 1/4 screen away from ship)
Also, on the phone, the ship doesn't move toward your finger and you can use both thumbs to average the movement (think joysticks positioned anywhere on the screen where you touch)

This looks really cool, definitely enjoying it

What I've figured out so far:

• Yellow Hexagons: boring and dull
• Yellow Octagons: just go straight
• Yellow Triangles: try to get behind you
• Yellow Pluses: just turn around
• Yellow Lines: just turn around
• Orange Squares: try to get in front of you
• Red Circles: expand and contract
• Pink Shurikens: just fly around everywhere

Found a bug in the maze mode, if you lose you just get a blank screen.

blueteak wrote: on the phone, the ship doesn't move toward your finger

What do you mean by this?


Bug: in Arcade Mode, I died, but then the timer kept going while all the enemies (and my ship) disappeared.

Some of these bugs only exist in web version, more testing has been done on iOS and it is probably getting hung at some weird point (like trying to submit a score to Game Center) I'll look into it though.

Nice job figuring out what the squares do, it makes them quite annoying.

@Sporlo: when you put your finger down anywhere on the screen, it keeps that position, then wherever you move your finger, it takes the vector from the starting position to current position, and moves the ship in that direction and magnitude. You can use multiple fingers (usually both thumbs) to average together, thus creating two "invisible dynamic joystics" anywhere on the screen

Oh ok. I got the multi-finger part, I just thought you meant that statement also applied to when you use only 1 finger.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing this on my phone

I do mean it for one finger as well, the "center" of the joystick isn't the ship (which would result in the ship trying to move in the direction of your finger as soon as you placed it down) because then your finger would cover up the area you were traveling to. Instead wherever you put your finger down is the center of the joystick, and the you move that finger in a direction away from the starting position to tell the ship what direction to move.

It's a bit hard to explain, but very intuitive once you try it. I haven't had to explain to anyone I've tested the iOS version on, other than "Use your thumbs to move", which is stated any time you start a game.

Edit: Also, you can mess around with the Grid in any of the menus, in case you hadn't noticed, which is quite fun.

I figured out what the squares did because I was thinking "he should make on that tries to intercept you in front of where you're going... oh no he didn't... oh he did."

iOS control sounds neat, would definitely want a mobile version of this (would even be willing to throw in $0.99 because this is tons of fun)

One question: do the triangles purposely try to point towards you, or is that just random chance luck that they keep barely clipping me on the side?

They do rotate toward you, but the cod ended up not to work the way I was intending, but it looked more interesting so I kept it that way. So really, I'm not sure exactly how it rotates toward you

+ Added a Pause button for iOS (Not in Web version, just pretend like it's there )
+ Also, not very usefule to you guys, but I increased the grid physics efficiency by 100% (now takes 50% of CPU power instead of like, 96%)

Alright, I understand the finger tapping now
Not what I expected, but considering that both movement schemes have pros and cons I guess the one you chose is probably better. Obviously the con of the desktop version is that your finger would cover your view, as you stated. But then the con with the iOS version is that every time you lift a finger, you must reset the zero-point. Again, it doesn't seem too difficult, and I trust that you haven't gotten any complaints from play testers.