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JohnSteel: I understand what you're saying. The game is definitely hard unless you know exactly what to do. It can be frustrating at times to be sure.
But there's a lot more that goes into a game than that. Is this game worth a 1 out of 5, the worst possible score, just because it's challenging or could have used a little more directions than what was provided? When I take a look at other games on the site rated 1 and even 2, I have to believe that this game is better than those, that's all.
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yeah! finally i got the card! Card art rocks by the way. About P.O.D., it's not really my type of game but i 100 % agree with ridley : overall the game is cool, just some minor adjustement could make it more polish. But thanks IndieFlashArcade to give us this game! keep the faith =)
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Well, I can certainly see all of the time that you put into this; it really shows. It’s a good game overall; my only complaints are minor and things that could make future installments better. First, the game seems to get easier as it goes along; having 2 tanks with double lasers is much easier than a single turret with a single laser no matter how many enemies are thrown at you. Secondly, I found myself often getting the double laser powerup when controlling tanks, which was more frustrating than anything. It would have been nice to somehow restrict certain powers during certain sequences. Third, and probably the most important, is the factor of "randomly" losing, especially in the last round. I know that there's an essential number of buildings that must survive each round, but it would have been nice to know the specific number, so I could have known exactly how many buildings I needed to protect.
But, these are minor details, and overall the game was good.
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RE: Indie’s “Blow” response. First, I’m as thankful for you making games as I am thankful that Miller makes Beer. I enjoy the product while acknowledging that it wasn’t made solely for my enjoyment but for profit. So don’t try to make yourself out to be a self righteous dev. in it for the smiling faces and nothing more. Second, I never mentioned FireFox so get your information straight. Lastly, I have respect for devs that consistently produce quality products. This product has obvious issues (as does any game) but is quality (as is gamma bros.). So you had my respect. However, you lost my respect (and probably that of many others) when you started taking the criticism personally and became flippant with your audience. There are some of us that truly wanted to help your game become even better. My previous comment was meant only to remind you of that and hopefully prevent you from alienating that crowd.
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Very nicely done.
I agree that it needs a few game play tweaks (hit areas need tweaking, conditions should be reset after levels, game over conditions should be more clear, last boss should be adjusted), but from a professional developers standpoint those are typical polish items so overall it is well done.
When a game's flaws can be pinpointed and narrowed down to just a few items, its a good sign. When a game is garbage, the laundry list tends to be impossibly long. For the initial release, these items are not bad at all, and it is much more polished than many of the other games on this site.
Regarding performance, POD is vector based, which is going to have a bit of an impact. Your CPU plays the biggest role in the graphics rendering in Flash, so if you have a slow processor, its going to choke on these vectors. The game really needs a quality toggle for that.
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Nicely done. Thanks to Kongregate for changing the challenge requirements. That final mothership kept killing me at the last moment.
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JohnSteel: I think you may be right but I don't think it justifies a 1 out of 5. This game, like all, has strengths and weaknesses. But a 1? Geez, do some searches for games rated at a 1 and I think we can all agree that POD does surpass them in quite a few areas.
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I think I know why there were complaints about the game not having a pause key. The game does have a pause key, of course...except during cut scenes when the pause key doesn't work at all.
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Definitely very professionally done. As others have said, it would be nice if when you finished a 'level' all the enemies were cleared off the screen, as it is frustrating to lose control and then have a bomb hit shortly after. I think the machine you are playing on makes a great difference in the playability of this game. I couldn't finish the challenge for the life of me on my laptop, but when I got home and tried on my much more powerful PC, I got it in a single try easily, and the game was much less frustrating. The difference was so huge, in fact, that I had to change my rating. It might be a good idea to let the user change the quality (unless you're already doing this and I missed it). Other than those things, nice game, nice artwork, and nice music.
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fun graphics and nice production values, but i'm completely baffled as to what each "level" is -- it seems that it ends all of a sudden saying I beat the level, but there are still enemies on-screen. If it's just a time limit I'd expect a countdown or something, or an enemy tally if that's what determines it .... whatever it is, the player should be aware of it though, right now it seems really arbitrary (at least to the end user)
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A) Music. Really great sound track, while it doesn't fit with any climatic moments of the game itself, the music fits really well with just getting into that "kill alien scum!" groove. B) Efx. The efx seem a bit muted when the music is on. C) Playability: It seemed to be the sprite limit was getting maxed out. My thought on this would be, maybe make the monsters take a few more hits and be less of them.
Replay:I went thru the game three (3) times before winning the 500,000 point challenge at lvl 10. I'd say this game is worth a replay, especially once you get past lvl 4 and get to play with the tanks. Nice!
Controls:I found the switching from special abilities to be a bit cumbersome and it took me hitting pause a few times to figure out what extra did what.
Major plus for me was that you allow us to remap the controls to what makes sense to us. All in all, a good new spin on the old space invaders theme! Thanks for sharing!
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First of all, great game Indie! Colorful artwork and nice music. As mentioned before though, it seems too slow. As a little graphical request, I would like health bars on the bosses to know how close it is to dying. Keep up the great work!
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axcho, since IndieFlashArcade didn't notice your comment yet, here's what they would have said:
"Well mabey you should invest in broad band you worthless SOB!"
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I finally beat this game and got the card. I am so glad i don't have to play this game anymore. Definitely should not have been selected as a challenge. At times the game laggs and is way to easy through the 1st 14 levels. No doubt that the developer should include a HP meter on both the bosses and the city.
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IndieFlashArcade: as someone who has received much "harsher criticism":http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=580806 on my own game, I would recommend that you wait to reply to comments until you cool down and can see things in a wider perspective. Angry or sarcastic retorts don't help you! And they don't help the person you're replying to either. Remember what you're here for - maybe it's to get an audience for your game, or to learn to be a better game developer, but either way, trying to defend yourself against disgruntled players will only hinder you in that goal.
Respectfully,
axcho
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Indie, don't get so wrapped up in all the negativity that you forget to give thanks to those actually trying to improve your game. And don't take the criticism so personal, it just encourages the naysayer to continue pushing.
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@Godio and @Xander323:
you must have working chat for challenge to work properly. other way it wont work with Kong's backend == no cards/point for you. and ofc latest version of Flash Plugin recommended :)
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Just like to offer some advice. On the second to last level, the number one priority is to destroy the building suckers. Let them build up so you can take them all out easily, but make sure the bar doesn't reach zero. I'm pretty sure this is why I managed to lose once on the last level with 4 buildings left. If that happens to you, its probably because some squid sneaked past you.
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Xander323, I have the same probleme (with IE). I thik the reason is I play from my office (damned! I am very unproductive) & the firewall may block these commands such as the chat room (in my case, I can't access the chat from my office).
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indie don't insult us. the game is easy, but i randmly lose for seemingly no reason. you made this game way more complex then it should be
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@xander323, as far i know is a problem with the flash plugins...with firefox i cant gain the card then i switched to Explorer 6 and i have gained it...check for have installed the latest version of them anyway
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I have just played and beaten this game twice and i havent had the 25 pts or the andromeda card added to my profile. Anyone know whats up with this?
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IndieFlashArcade, comments about your total unpolite behaviour with other users will not solve anything because you simply will ignore them.....i hope that next time you will think twice about that becasue as far you know we are NOT idiots or kids, maybe some comments from some users are not so constructive but if you check better you will find that the complaints are the same :) and not so unconstructive.
And because you need a "constructive" comment then i give you one:
When i played the game with firefox latest version the game was somewhat slow, with internet explore 6 somewhat faster, surely is a problem with the two differents versions of Flash for the two browser....maybe an old version will work better? i dont know..... i dont use Explorer 7 then i dont know if there is the same "problem"
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i finally beat the challenge!! ok heres how i did it...the first time the ufo comes jus shoot it as much as u can then jus get to lvl 14 and then save ur missles and lasers for lvl 15 and then jus keep shooting the ufo and when the little spaceships comeout use the lasers and missles on em, and u should beat it...anyway i like the game if it wasnt a challenge i thionk some more things couldve been fixed before tht happened but anyway good work
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Game is pretty good. Not TOO hard, not TOO easy. The programmer is a bit on edge from what I can tell. Goes on the defensive very fast and retaliates quickly as well.
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I think the controls are fine. The only real problem I had with it was the double shot popping up while using the tanks. Otherwise it's a great trip off Space Invaders.
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The design is pretty clean, but I'm not very convinced by the gameplay. It's really hard to get what's going on, the controls are too complicated, not user-friendly at all.
Must be simplified a little bit.
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If you die, there's too many bldgs. being obliterated...intercept as many of those bombs as possible that come down at u, u have to track back and forth all the time, kill all the squids so they dont infect ur bldgs. and when the squid comes on lvl 7 or 8, u have to go back and forth between tanks, using the powerups..thats wut theyre for....the mothership...just try killing only 1-2 ufos, then focus on her with everything u got.
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Hey Indie. I'm just giving feedback, don't blow your top. I know I havn't made anything nearly as good. That doesn't mean I can't say what I think!
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Draco, there's a way to turn off the help in the game controls menu. Great game Indie, I like the unique and easy to grasp concept. I'm not particularly a "pink" man, but it works well in this game :). I like the colors and graphics a lot. 5 stars.
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I finally did it...i had to try more than ten times! and i repeat: indie your game is good (i gave 3 stars), but there is that bug that may ruin the gaming experience. I don't know how i did it finally,but it was a fight against time :)
I don't agree with people that say that this game is awful...it's just a little slow, and maybe i wouldn't choose it for a challenge. But I'm sure that I wouldn't be able to create a game like this, the idea is good and it has good graphics and gameplay.