The internet is a place for trolls and complainers (like me!) who like to gripe at every opportunity.
For the most part, we tend to ignore these types, which generally means that comments sections have become largely ignored.
Here at AGameAWeek, the opposite has happened. There are apparently no trolls daring enough to even attempt to play my games! I seem to have scared most of them away.
As a result, there are no trollers or complainers here, and since those are the types that make up the 99% of the commenters, we generally end up with nothing at all.
Hmmm..

Still, whinging about BlastTrax appears to have pulled a few commenters out of the woodworks, and in reply to yesterday's post, "M" has decided to voice his opinion on the game.

And it's a GOOD opinion, full of detail, and proper complaints about the game, instead of the usual "Oooh, pretty colours!" stuff!!

o/Hurrayo/

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Let's take it one line at a time..

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Blast Trax is promising but it only feels like half a game.Even with the update there is just something missing.

Yeah, I'm still pretty sure there's something missing, myself.
A classic shooter needs a "Big Boss Battle!" but trying to do that without it being a generic "Big Boss Battle" is tough.
I tried adding that "Meteor Arena" thing to Arcade mode, and that does sort of change things a little, but it's not yet enough.
Maybe I should just do a "Big Boss Battle", and have done with it!?

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Here???s my thoughts, do what you will with them but are intended as constructive.

Thankyou!

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Don???t start with easy mode selected, small kids may like it, but it is boring. Normal difficulty gives a much better impression.

Easy mode, Classic, Level One contains the entirety of any sort of tutorial that the game hopes to have.
I normally DO start all my games with Normal mode highlighted, but in this case I thought it best to give players a little clue as to how to begin.
I also did this with Hoppy Bobby, but in a much more forceful way. In Hoppy Bobby, the menu pops up with ONLY Easy mode available. No choice, Easy or Nothing. People seemed incredibly unhappy with this, so I've opted to never dare do that again!!
I hate tutorials more than anyone, so having to have them at all is a bit bloody annoying, but they are sort of a requirement nowadays. I try to keep them to a minimum, and in this case you can just skip past it by selecting a different option.
For what it's worth, although I typically stay to the "Easy is still rock hard" mentality, I actually decided to go for a true "Easy/Normal/HAAARDDDD!!" distinction this time. .. Annoyingly it's mostly backfired, as indeed, Easy is too bloody easy, and hard is WAY too frickin' hard!!
D'oh!!

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The Android version suffurs without the blur on the ios version in the looks department, maybe that in itself is a little telling. I read why you couldn???t get Android to play ball but the game partly relies on this effect so Android users lose something at the off.

A result of Android Fragmentation, I'm afraid. "Blur" relies on a very old "feedback" technique which has happily existed in computers since the dawn of time. Instead of clearing the screen at the start of a new frame, you leave it's contents onscreen, and fade it all out a bit.
This gives you a nice blurring effect when you shift the next frame around.
Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot possibly comprehend, some Android devices can't even do that right.
Instead of leaving the contents of the screen where they are, they instead inexplicably shuffle it around, like some sort of giant sliding-block puzzle.

Every other target that I can code for keeps things onscreen perfectly fine, but some certain Android devices won't.
Since I can't know for sure exactly which devices do or don't behave, I've had to opt to disable the function when you first load the game.
The option's still there in the Options/Pause menu, but it's a "At your own risk" thing, as opposed to being a "borked from the get-go" one!
I HATE that I had to do that, and I hate that I can't easily fix it, but.. well.. that's fragmentation for you.
If Google had kept tighter reigns on things, this wouldn't be an issue, and..really.. there's no excuse for this sort of thing. Basic screen feedback should be a bog-standard thing, not a "feature" to be earned!!

If I can come up with a new technique that plays ball with Android devices, without needing too many extra sprites or other things, (because for starters, that track really soaks up the sprite numbers!!) then I'll attempt it. but so far I haven't found one!

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The pacing of the levels feels just wrong for me and the new game modes just add confusion.

I can only apologise for the lack of pacing.
Much like my lack of artistic design, I'm also crap at making games pace well.
For the most part, the game should slowly but surely get a little bit harder with each level. Sometimes it doesn't, but given that everything's being generated randomly anyway, it should at least be vaguely passable!
If I'd've attempted to "design" the levels, it might've gone a little better, but I think from previous experiences of me attempting to design levels, it would actually have turned out even more of a jumbled mess than it already is!

As for the new game modes, I tried to add enough variety that different players would find their own particular favourite.
I personaly prefer Survival mode, as it gives you the challenge of trying to keep your health going, whereas the other two modes allow you to rush towards the end, knowing that your health will be replenished.
They could probably have done with more tutorial'y stuff, but as we've already discussed, I pretty much hate those!!

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Why have a track? looks nice, defined a play space but here is something missing. You are not racing, you can stand still, nothing is chasing you. Needs an Evil Otto?

I started coding a racing game.
The grass was green, the track was grey, the kerb was white and red, the car was blue, and the controls were Left, Right and Forward..
It was a top-down 1980s styled racing engine, and it looked quite nice.

Then, literally on the exact same day, another indie developer FoppyGames released a 3D 1980s styled racing game, which blew the socks off my crappy little top-down engine.
Bugger..

And so began the task of changing mine into something else. I turned the car into a ship, made the grass into stars, and multi-coloured the track because.. well.. what else could I do!!?

From there on, the other racers became enemy to fire at, and the game became less about a race, and more about a violent destructive trek through space.

Since then, I've considered going back to "Racer" stuff, but each time I consider it, I realise the main issue.
When I switched the game from being a racer, into a straight forward shooter, I stripped out any sort of acceleration from the game.
Although you do have a basic control of your speed, you don't get "proper" speed in the game.
Having any sort of timing element will make that MUCH more apparent, and you'll pretty much have to resort to "full speed ahead" to reach the destination.
Removing my original racer control code has made the game into a different type of game, entirely, and without significantly changing the physics of the player, it's going to be hard to put the Racer stuff back in.

I would still like to have some sort of checkpoint-based looping-track battlefield style thing, though.. I just need to figure out the best way to do it.. Hmmm..

As for "Evil Otto", that's also been considered. A second "player" on the track that attempts to storm ahead, to beat you to the other side. But then I figured, he'd probably need his own weapon, too, right? And he'd equally be shooting the enemy, and fighting his way through. So then you're left with the leftovers, and he's pretty much playing the level for you!
That's all I could think of.. Each time I considered it, I could see an AI player playing the game, and you being left to slowly float behind him, up until a sudden bolt towards the end just to win the race. I can't quite balance that out in my head, in a way that makes it less dull!
But it is festering away, and as soon as I can figure something out, I'll give it a go.

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l bought it for both Android and ios, I like what you do and every now and then you come out with a blinder. Blast Trax unfortunately isn???t one of them ??? yet. Maybe that is a factor why it hasn???t done as well as you???d hoped? Good luck with it, I look forward to any updates and future games.

I know it's not my best. It's fun, but it's no Alien Deathmatch!
But it's probably my most publicised.. Publicity that wasn't, by the way, even slightly worked at! It just sort of took off, and reviewers all over the Net were chomping at the bits to give it a go, posting their reviews as they went.. And that's what really gets me... Why is my most publicised game, probably the one game that everyone was desperate to try out, also one of my least popular ones!!?
OK, it's sold a few hundred in total, and I should be happy with that, and.. Really, I am!
It just feels odd that it stopped there.
SpikeDislike got one review from TouchArcade and sold about 800 copies in a couple of days.
BlastTrax got about a dozen reviews, all over the place, and sold 300 in a couple of months.

It's bizarre to me.
I don't get why that is.
I'm still truly baffled.

*shrugs*