[GoldenJoe]

Hello, everyone! Thanks again for the feedback you gave me earlier. I took it into account, and now present you with the finished product!

BlackBerry App World - Neon Bounce

Please continue to offer your feedback. Here are some updated screenshots to get your attention. Enjoy your new PlayBooks!

[TheMarco]

Wow GoldenJoe that looks absolutely awesome. One of the coolest looking things I've seen so far for the PlayBook. I'll be buying this for sure.

[GoldenJoe]

Thank you, sir. Please don't hesitate to provide feedback once you've played it. As you may have heard, devs have not had access to PlayBooks for development, so there may be unforeseen problems (display, speed). If you find anything, let me know, and I will fix it ASAP. Of course, comments on gameplay, levels, music, and general requests are also welcome.

[TheMarco]

Thank you, sir. Please don't hesitate to provide feedback once you've played it. As you may have heard, devs have not had access to PlayBooks for development, so there may be unforeseen problems (display, speed). If you find anything, let me know, and I will fix it ASAP. Of course, comments on gameplay, levels, music, and general requests are also welcome.

You're welcome!
Hopefully tomorrow. I plan to pick up a 32GB PlayBook if I can because I can't stand the waiting for RIM and I kinda wanted the larger storage anyway

If my wife gets too jealous I'll give her the free one from RIM

[TheMarco]

Very cool game. Impressive. I didn't know you could get this smooth a gaming experience in AIR. I left you a review too!

[GoldenJoe]

Thanks for the review, Marco. So, in the end, it maintained 60FPS? If so, that's a huge relief. I've already submitted an optimized update anyway, but its good to know.

Also, wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask what you needed for that fifth star.

[TheMarco]

Thanks for the review, Marco. So, in the end, it maintained 60FPS? If so, that's a huge relief. I've already submitted an optimized update anyway, but its good to know.

Also, wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask what you needed for that fifth star.

Haha don't feel offended by the 4. It's not 5 because it's not a 'killer app' to me which is kind of my criterium. I could change it I suppose because for what it is it's pretty damn perfect if you ask me. I suppose I put 4 instead of 5 because it's not like it's need for speed or something. Make sense?

I do really like the app and i didn't see any slowdowns. Not sure if it was 60fps at all times but it was certainly not choppy.

[GoldenJoe]

lol, don't worry, I'm not offended. I just gotta ask, because when you've worked on a game so long, you sometimes miss things that are important to people. Features you thought were nice might be unnecessary, or something you put off might be a big feature for users. It might even be balance issues like "change the timer to make rounds faster/longer". Don't change it just because I asked. Ratings should be earned.

If it wasn't choppy, it was probably 60, or close to it. Thanks again for confirming. Now I know I have some elbow room to add more stuff.

[GoldenJoe]

Here's a quick gameplay video I shot. I'll have a more formal trailer soon.

[Marc_Paradise]

It's very attractive and the music is good; but ... well, it seems there's not much point to it. One swipe and then watch and wait for everything to die down, then rinse and repeat?

Visually it looks great; and the audio is also quite good. But given the rather limited gameplay mechanics, I can comfortably pass on the full version.

[GoldenJoe]

I hear what you're saying, Marc. In fact, I've watched a few people play the game, and the single complaint is that it takes too long for a round to end. After getting to see it on the actual device, I agree, so I'm going to post an update to make rounds faster and let the player be more involved.

Specifically, I'm thinking of cutting round time from 20 seconds to 10 seconds, and increasing the "friction" of the pucks. Do you believe this would address your concerns, or would you balance it differently?

[D.Vader]

If it's sub $2 you got my purchase! Love the retro style!

[GoldenJoe]

Thanks, Vader. I'm still working to improve the experience, especially in regard to making rounds faster so that you can shoot more frequently. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, and please leave a review (though give me a chance to address any grievances first )

[GoldenJoe]

Good news - I'll be rolling out a significant update pretty soon. Before I send it in, I wanted to get your thoughts.

So far, Neon Bounce has had very positive responses with a 4.5 star rating. When watching people play it in person though, I noticed two things:

1) they kept trying to flick the puck more than one time per round
2) they suggested that each round takes too long to play itself out

So, I decided to mix up the gameplay a bit and make things a bit more...frantic. Here are the changes I made to resolve the issues:

1) you can now flick the green puck as many times as you wish
2) the timer has been cut from 20 seconds to 12 seconds
3) pucks have more "friction", meaning they slow down and stop faster
4) points are no longer awarded for collisions. Instead, the point box which spawns when pucks collide must now be tapped in order to claim the points.
5) the amount of points each collision is worth is now based on speed (100-1600 points), instead of the flat 100 point rate before

So basically, you have to balance out flinging the green puck to keep things going fast so that big points show up, and actually collecting those points by tapping them. They only last for about a second (though I might re-balance this), and it's harder to predict where they'll show up when everything is moving fast, again providing risk/reward between going for speed and chaos against slower, more deliberate play.

Sound off, folks.