Any thoughts on Flatspace?

blah blah blah Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:33:02 GMT, "Sven" <maxwellshed ~no
sp@m ~ @blueyonder.co.uk> blah:

>Any thoughts on the new flatspace game?
>
>For those of you who don't know, it's basically a 2D elite clone.
>
>Personally i think it has a lot of flaws, but a lot of improvements could be
>made easily.

yes. Unbalanced weapons with over-powered chainguns and useless lasers.
No storyline, no secret to uncover. OTOH, a solid 1980s nostalgia.

>
>It's also annoyingly hard. Fights go one of two ways. You win after a good
>close fight or you die instantly. In my experiance if an NPC ship is good
>enough to beat you it will do so almost instantly.

yes, permadeath mode is a joke like this. You die instantly from any
rocket that hits you. All the high-rating mission targets seem to carry
level-3 rockets against which there is almost no defense anyway. The
dogfighting is fun, spiraling around in 2D space. But the ships are much
too brittle. You need to survive several hours of this highly unfair
setting until you can buy more solid ships that can take a rocket or two
with their armour.

>
>So many times i've thought, i'm doin well here, then randomly i'll fly out
>of a space station and be targetted and annihilated.

I've also lost some very promising candidates due to no fault of my own.
Just coming out of a station or hyperspace, and all you see is a rocket
or plasma burst coming your defenseless way.

>
>A very generous demo can be had here :
>http://www.lostinflatspace.com/

As you said, improvements could have been made easily but the company
chose not to listen to the players. What a shame, since some aspects of
this game are already much better than EV Nova which commands quite a
following.

To sum up, missing storyline and too many inconsistencies in combat.
With no end goal like defeat the cosmic evil dude or conquer the galaxy
the level-up mania didn't quite kick in, plus the partially
unfair/flawed combat.

I think I read an interview with the guy who wrote the game saying that
he's going to make a sequel in 3D. Lets see how long it'll take him to
understand that being essentially a one-man show he can't compete with
something like Freelancer.
 >> Stay informed about: Any thoughts on Flatspace? 

I've always believed that one of the strengths of being an independent
developer is being able to listen to fans and able to adapt more.

I aware of the concpet of feature leak, and i know that ultimately it is HIS
game, but surely some of the simple minor adjustments that would make this
game better could be added without him feeling like it is not his game any
more. Am i making sense? probably not.

IMHO the only way independent devlopers can compete with larger dev houses
is to listen to the market more. Find a Niche and make the best damn game
for that niche that you possibly can.

Cheers
Sven

"fartknocker 3000" <invalid RemoveThis @invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:4224742f$0$4369$4d4ebb8e@read.news.de.uu.net...

> As you said, improvements could have been made easily but the company
> chose not to listen to the players. What a shame, since some aspects of
> this game are already much better than EV Nova which commands quite a
> following.


> To sum up, missing storyline and too many inconsistencies in combat.
> With no end goal like defeat the cosmic evil dude or conquer the galaxy
> the level-up mania didn't quite kick in, plus the partially
> unfair/flawed combat.
>
> I think I read an interview with the guy who wrote the game saying that
> he's going to make a sequel in 3D. Lets see how long it'll take him to
> understand that being essentially a one-man show he can't compete with
> something like Freelancer.
 >> Stay informed about: Any thoughts on Flatspace? 

blah blah blah Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:33:59 GMT, "Sven" <maxwellshed ~no
sp@m ~ @blueyonder.co.uk> blah:

>I aware of the concpet of feature leak, and i know that ultimately it is HIS
>game, but surely some of the simple minor adjustments that would make this
>game better could be added without him feeling like it is not his game any
>more. Am i making sense? probably not.

Well I meant there are just some ingredients that you need to enthrall
players. The storyline in Flatspace is - collect $10M, buy the cosmic
cuckoo clock and the game ends in the very same way as if you had just
died.
It's not really satisfying for me. All you're playing for is a nice
plaque on the gravestone. How does that make your avatar a libido
object?

Plus by making the difficulty so insanely high the game excludes a lot
of players. No idea what was in the developers head, but if they really
thought the game cannot do with an easy or moderate option they were
never really aiming at a broad market anyway.

>
>IMHO the only way independent devlopers can compete with larger dev houses
>is to listen to the market more. Find a Niche and make the best damn game
>for that niche that you possibly can.

of course. Especially the whole 3D stuff is really nothing but manpower.
The more you put in, the better. And if the game doesn't look quite like
the current champion the reviews all go down automatically because the
game supposedly isn't up to 'current standards'. It's just my opinion
but sticking to the nowadays weird 2D thing and polishing till it shines
sounds better. Flatspace has a lot of great aspects, I bought the first
release and still think so in case I sounded overly negative
 >> Stay informed about: Any thoughts on Flatspace? 

"fartknocker 3000" <invalid.RemoveThis@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:4225fde1$0$4355$4d4ebb8e@read.news.de.uu.net...


> Flatspace has a lot of great aspects, I bought the first
> release and still think so in case I sounded overly negative
>

I believe ya, thousands wouldn't.

Cheers
Sven
 >> Stay informed about: Any thoughts on Flatspace?