I don't know if I'll do this, but one idea I had... Maybe there could be a 0.5% chance that a ring will be one the letters. So, they will be "rare" items that you have to collect after playing for a long time. Maybe this would unlock a special ship or something...
Yeah, that would certainly be possible. That was the original plan for the targets. I'll have to code it and see if it's fun. Just thought I'd say again, thanks to everyone for all the ideas/feedback. This is a very fun and unique development process. <3 TA
So I don't have an original idea of my own atm, but I had a thought related to some other peoples' I think that it'd be cool if these "arcade cahllenges" could be accessed from inside the campaign mode. For instance, you fly over to all those arches, and it asks you if you want to do a race. Or you fly to an ally island with a VIP member, and have the option to escort them somewhere. Then, you could earn money from such activities to buy upgrades or ships or whatever. This would provide choices in the campaign mode other than pure conquest. I think it'd be a nice addition
That's a cool idea. It may be hard to put in or break the flow of the game. Maybe the arcade modes can be unlocked this way or just unlocked as you complete certain percentages of the conquest mode. I really think a deathmatch like the original SciFly would be really nice. It was fun, it just wasn't flexible enough. Waves don't really replace that for me.
I could definitely make it so that arcade modes are unlocked by percentage complete of the conquest mode. This is actually how ships and weapons are made available (made available to unlock them with points, not made available to use right away). So you would like a deathmatch mode where you just kill X amount of enemies in a certain amount of time?
Absolutely. Just something to play a couple of rounds and stop. If you think the campaign mode offers this, that's fine too. I was thinking a 2 minute battle in a smaller area instead of a 15 minute battle in a large area.
I have a question...is the conquest mode entirely based on conquering different islands...or is there anything else to do?
Instead of just having the one mode for the dogfight (deathmatch), you could have a few options. Players could choose to have a timed match, with set amounts of time such as 3 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins. They could also choose unlimited for the time, and then the fight would just last until all of the player's health was gone. The rings screens look great!
I'm driving to San Francisco for an iPhone Dev party, so I might not be able to get much coding done over the next 2 or 3 days. I wanted to thank everyone who has posted so far so I sent all posters a promo code for the original SciFly. -->Back to discussion Right now Conquest mode is all about capturing islands. It's not something you would do quickly, you might capture 2 or 3 islands in an average sitting. Every time you conquer an island, you gain energy which goes towards making new weapons/ships/(and maybe arcade modes) available. Whenever you destroy an enemy target you will also get credits. Credits are what you use to actually buy an item. So like to buy a Flak Cannon, you have to have 30 of the islands captured, and pay 14,000 credits (for example). You could get the credits by destroying targets in conquest or in arcade modes, but you'll have to get the islands in conquest. With better weapons, you'll be able to go back and improve your scores on the different arcade modes also. So both conquest and arcade modes feed on each other.
I see. Sounds pretty awesome. I still think it'd be cool to have options other than straightforward conquest though. Maybe you could make alliances with other islands, and do missions for them (VIP escort, transporting stuff, assassinations). The focus could still be on the battles, but this could provide nice diversions from time to time. Also, maybe for later more distant islands, you would need allied support to take out the more powerful enemies. Maybe this isn't how you envisioned gameplay, but you could probably pull it off without altering too much. In the very least it'd be cool to access arcade challenges from in game, as I mentioned before.
'ghost ship timeline', and 'ghost formation flying' 'ghost ship timeline': pick from any stage you won, then you see your ship in front of you almost 30% translucent.. you follow that ship, or try to fly in front of it, firing on the very enemies you just destroyed, and hopefully you are able to keep up, or even pass your 'ghost' ship. points vary on how you do... 'ghost formation': formations of ships fly over stages. your one and only job is to fly the formation leader of the ghost squadron. their are formations like the reverse 'V', straight line, ect... you must hold your lead position to score high, and you can compete as many times in order to best your time, score, ect.. it would be great if you can have playbacks to see your mistakes, your best flying... both of these could be stages that you unlock after you beat the game, in order to get more from it...
