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Control issues…

July 7,2009 8:33 am no comments

I’ve been reading the reviews from the App store and it seems there are some complaints about the controls (The Dpad and firing) during Combat.  I think the issues stem from the “Smart Fire” we put in to help the twitch response that is necessary.  This feature works great when you’re far away, however, when you’re close, it seems to have some issues figuring out the best angle (since there are probably 3 to choose from).

Here is how the “Smart Fire” feature works.  It is a bit of AI to help in the aiming process.  It keeps track of where your enemy is and your location, then it is constantly figuring out the best direction to fire in order to hit your enemy.  Once you press fire, it helps you shoot in the right direction (if you’re not pressing in the exact direction of the enemy).  The thinking behind this came from the inherent lack of response from any virtual Dpad for the iPhone (it’s not tactile, so even the best ones won’t have the response of a physical one.)  Far away, it works great…I can be running straight up with my unicorn, when my enemy is in line with me horizontally, I press fire and it shoots along the horizontal plane, without me even having to change direction.  This is something that is necessary on the iPhone.

When you’re close to your enemy and in a few other situations, however, I think Smart Fire gets a little confused.  We’re working on addressing that issue, along with making a setting to turn it off, if you choose.  This will be in update 1.2.

We’ve also fixed the accelerometer not working for the dark side, enhanced the Dpad to be a bit more sensitive and we’re working on making the hard AI setting REALLY hard…we may even come up with a fourth setting, which is “insane” for you hard-core people…but don’t cry about it once we do it, because it will be VERY hard and few people (including myself) will be able to beat it.  And to note “Easy” is meant to be easy, thus the name.  That setting is for people who’ve never played on the iPhone before, the grandmas and kids under 8.  If you’re any type of gamer, use the medium or hard setting.

We’re being very aggressive with the multiplayer design, which I think everyone will be very happy about.  There will be a few surprises, I’ll let you know as soon as I know they’re going to work.

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