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[Mef]

I like the idea but the left/right controls seem a bit sluggish.
The turning speed is awfull and it feels as if the vehicle was
really strugling while being pushed from behind by a plow or
something. This makes stunts really unwieldy as well.

Oh, and seriously - would you try stunts when running for your
life!? Hahaha, nevermind. This feels a lot like Need for Madness.

[fentlewoodlewix]

I like the idea but the left/right controls seem a bit sluggish.
The turning speed is awfull and it feels as if the vehicle was
really strugling while being pushed from behind by a plow or
something. This makes stunts really unwieldy as well.

Thanks for the feedback Mef, I'm addressing this issue (and others) right now. We also felt it struggling for example due to an impact stopping/slowing you right down, such that its difficult to get back up to speed again. I've made a tweak to the vehicle performance at low speeds and hopefully it wont be quite so  difficult in future.

Oh, and seriously - would you try stunts when running for your
life!? Hahaha, nevermind. This feels a lot like Need for Madness.

Well, we try the stunts because, well, its a game, and also they make you go faster ;-)

I just googled Need for Madness. Looks like it could be an awesome game. They do look a lot alike dont they. Sadly it wont launch on my mac, dont know why. Though on reading the instructions, seems both need for madness and Meteor Storm Escape implement a gameplay mechanism like the one I put in to the Stunting and Tricks from My Sims Racing DS (borrowed heavily from SSX) the best place to check it out was in the stunt parks where you could stunt and boost to your heart's content.

thanks for your feedback,

sean

[fentlewoodlewix]

New HUD Choices for Greater Clarity

Some of the feedback we have got lead me to believe that the fuel/sheild/boost systems werent being communicated clearly enough to the player. One of the ways to fix this is to re-arrange the HUD so things are easier to read.

Here are two choices, vertical stacked and side by side.



They still have the same flashy text and warnings that the previous versions had.
Which do you think is clearer? (Click through the images to see a few more Images)

thanks
sean

[burtonposey]

Hey Sean,

It's still looking good.

I don't want to deviate from your question about preference between the two too much, but I have an alternate suggestion as well as some other ideas/feedback. Some of this is based on experiences I've had developing my UI on my game in the past month.

If the player needs to read environmental hazards and they have to read them through UI obscuring it, it might not be a good idea to have it up there. Granted you have transparency on the bars, but I still think that the full to empty states for those bars would read better as a vertical progress bar where full is up to the top and empty is at the bottom.

I'd also say for branding sake and the goal of more real-estate freed up on your screen (really important for your mobile aspirations), ditch the words "shields" and "fuel" and come up with iconography for those. It'll take up less space and you can have both meters anchored to the same position on the screen if the icons are the same size. The iconography would also help if you (can't remember if you already do) have pickups that replenish. Then you have a nice 1:1 relationship between the UI and your in-game pickups.

Having said all of this, I played it just now and I don't think the bars get in the way too much. Still it would be better in my opinion to not have them obscure where things are coming in. At first I thought all of that text on the right wasn't there, but when I finished I saw one of line of it on the screen. I think that pertains to shields. I think against your bar, it's too much information and for approachability sake, I'd personally drop all of that detail. You can show it visually, but I couldn't see what impact it had on my gameplay.

Keep up the great work and thanks for bearing with my feedback. We just got back from PAX and have had to deconstruct 1/3-1/2 of our UI because it's not quite intuitive enough. I like to think it is intuitive at a glance, but not with the amount of concentration required during gameplay, Apart from pretty screenshots for promo, the still shots of the UI don't matter too much,

Take care,
Burton

[Quicksand-S]

I played this a few days ago and forgot to comment.

I thought it was decent, but the "tricks" didn't feel like tricks to me. They were just slow, pointless rotations. I think the speed and dodging obstacles are the fun parts of the game.

My main issue, though, was that number at the top of the screen. "To next fuel" suggests that when I reach that point, there will be a fuel pickup. The thing is, I ran low on fuel all the time and sometimes got refueled seemingly at random. Not sure what was going on there.

I think I'd enjoy the game more if it was just about dodging meteors, falling trees, etc. without any "tricks" or fuel, but maybe I'm just not in your target audience.

[fentlewoodlewix]

click on the image for a video...



In addition to the iOS version which is free with an in game shop for more levels, i was wondering which PC/MAC indie game site would be a good pick for selling the desktop version?


Its awesome to work on stuff, but towards the end it can get tireing.


blogpost:
http://blog.happylittlealiens.com/2012/12/meteor-storm-escape-beta-gameplay-video/

[fentlewoodlewix]

We are delighted to announce, that Meteor Storm Escape can be downloaded for free on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad from the Apple App Store!

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/meteor-storm-escape/id577076747?mt=8

I want to make a big special thanks to everyone who helped with feedback, it was really useful guys!



The game itself is free, you can download extra tracks and/or ships for a dollar or so.

Since submitting i have noticed a couple of bugs in the current build which we'll be fixing in the next couple of days.
If you dont have an apple device, then send us a message and i'll try to get a copy of the pc version to you very soon.

share & enjoy!
sean

[ladron]

Congrats on the release!

I just played through all of the work-in-progress builds and it was interesting to see how it improved over time. Love the aesthetic of the game.

[fentlewoodlewix]

Playable PC Version of Meteor Storm Escape

As way of a big thanks to everyone on TigSource who helped out with feedback, here is a link to a folder which contains OSX and Win versions of Meteor Storm Escape.

This will only stay in place for a few days.
So grab your copy immediately if want one.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dj3vyi3k18yjiju/FzzplKkHR_

thanks

sean

[caou]

The osx version won't start on my machine 
It's icon starts boucing but then nothing happens at all
( osx 10.7.4 )

[fentlewoodlewix]

thats puzzling, something to do with putting it on dropbox i guess.
the original app works on my mac here, but the downloaded one doesnt.
i've put an archive up instead of a bare app. try again in about 10 minutes?

i'll be trying a test too.

sean

[fentlewoodlewix]

Meteor Storm Escape for mac and win is now available for sale on Indievania!
We've set the price at $3.14 for fun mostly.
http://www.indievania.com/games/meteor-storm-escape/

The iOS version is still available for free on apple's app store.
If you buy the whole game as an in app purchase, all tracks and all vehicles then it comes to $3
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/meteor-storm-escape/id577076747

Thanks for everyone's help.
sean

[Holts]

Hello. First time poster on TIG ^^ and first time testing a game on TIG. So i played your game for about 2 lives and i think the game has potential. But the game was a little to difficult.

I love difficult games but they should give the player incentive to play more. My head was thinking: This is fun, but why should i continue?

I know difficult games feels great when you are creating them but that is because you, as a developer have incentive to play them.

My tips:
Reduce difficulty in the start so that the player can become accustomed to the game.
or
Give the player more incentive to continue playing.

Cheers :D