Be Excellent To Each Other

Note the seamless solution to the problem of capturing game footage on iDevices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjVSnx5_MI

I did wonder what had happened to this.

Looks intriguing.

Reminds me of Emotion.

I can't wait for the WP7 release!

'Making of' blog post:

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/archi ... p?post=539

So... what is it?

To resurrect an old thread and try to help those people on my friends list who's top score is around 50 points

The game has you playing billiards on a table with magnetic balls and no pockets.

The object of the game is to do the most complex and complicated *valid* shot so you have to hit a ball of the same colour , you get bonus points for getting close to but not hitting other coloured balls , for joining balls together to make a pattern , and for bouncing your ball off the various sides of the table before hitting the target ball.
You also get more points for taking more shots , a lot of the early screens can be completed by a single shot - you want to avoid that - its a very strange game to start with since you just get the first screen which looks like this



So you pick a ball , whack it and the screen ends like this



And you get



However , if instead you take one of the first balls and bounce it off the side of the screen about 4 times to hit another one



You end up here



Then rattle the last one off the sides as many times as you can but still hit one of the joined balls like so



Then you've completed the level and score an S , to unlock another board and try something else

We should have hired you to write the tutorial.

What is it with you guys and tutorials?

We make games that confuse people (initally).

I think the best idea we had for MB was adding the speech bubble which says "Take as many shots as you can". I think that prevented a lot of potential one star reviews.

Well I've just downloaded the game onto my iTouch but it says the shop is 'temporarily unavailable' so I can't give you any money I'm afraid.

Yeah. Apple seem to have forgotten to approve our in-app purchases. So we've got thousands of people playing it and no way to earn any money or for the players to access the extra content. This is a little bit frustrating.

It seems apple reviewed and allowed the game but not the extra stuff yet , its on their blog

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/blog/ ... p?post=547

The other tables are an instant buy for me as soon as they are around.



My first few games were all the exact same and i read the instructions a few times and still didn't get it.

Looking at my friends list there were about 3 people with scores of less than 200 points so they were still stuck and the first part had not clicked for them , with the sheer volume of stuff in the app store I unfortunately think a lot of people are going to download it , try to bang the balls around a few times and give up , which is a pity because its got a lot of depth (right now there are still parts that i dont get - for example I can use my shot on the multi connected balls and if those connect and hit something elseit doesnt count as a missed go but you dont get many points for it - i'm sure there are a few levels where there are good points to be had by using shots to join up straggling groups into the right patterns)

Thanks for the tips, Zaphod! It's definitely helping me get a firmer focus on the gameplay mechanics. I must admit that there was an initial bit of "What the fuck?" when I started playing, but that's now given way to "Ah, just one more go..."

You don't get ANY points for a cluster shot and your tariff doesn't increase either. But you can't lose your tariff.

Those shots will be come more useful on later tables.

Basically you only score for connecting single balls (or the two bonuses combo & clear).

I like this a lot from my few minutes with it.

ANd it's polished to a shine.

I'm also enjoying this a lot.

since this morning in the trian i get this, it really is billiards in the 'kunststoten', ancient dutch way doing things, enjoying it a lot..

Really enjoying this. Will pay cash monies.

My only issue - the controls often get incredibly "twitchy" when I'm trying to line up a delicate shot, rapidly changing power levels and the exact target of the shot. I accept this is probably my stupid fat fingers but it's still very frustrating.

Really digging this!

I don't know what that is but I like it.

Over 2,200 on the leaderboards now (and another chance to show off that i'm just outside the top 5)



Some hints - its best to end with a complex shot that makes a complex shape , and if you can get any buzz going by getting close to other colours you can get some silly amounts for a single shot

My best single shot (not counting bonuses) is 5200 , top combo 11 , top buzz 14 , best bounce 23 , and just over 4 hours of play so far.

Don't forget these guys made Naked War as well!

It's just as genius (albeit in a very different way) to Magnetic Billiards.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6705

http://www.zee-3.com/nakedwar/

There should be a BEEX Naked War league really, and the game is free now too.

If you're not already, Pickfords, you should really be giving AE a kickback for his relentless Naked War shilling

IT'S THE BEST TURN-BASED STRATEGY GAME EVER. *


* Albeit with a handful of bugs that were never quite stamped on.

It's gaugain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_billiards

hit a bit of a brck wall now in MB:blue print (weird that's called blueprint on the iphone itself), I got 15 S now, but the last 5 elude me.. wonder if I'll keep motivated to do the last 5.... it resolved me from my tiny towers addiction though..

what's your gamecenter name pickfords?

@azphod, btw how many fingers did you need for that last screenshot in your tutorial..

You just need 3 , 2 for the 'two button salute' to grab the picture and one to hold the shot :-)



Which levels , and would you like some hints on them ?

I assume 9 is one of them (it was the hardest for me) some tips - spoilered in case you dont want them)



You need 2360 for an S rank on it , and I struggled with it for a while but i'm up to around 7400 on that single table now.

Same here, the breakthrough for me was aiming for a line rather than a more "solid" shape.

how much do the different shapes score?

a line (superstring) does boost it indeed.. getting closer on 9

next turn got it, not sure why it didn't happen before, tried to get shapes and two-cushions as well then.., now 11,12, 13,14 and 16and i'm done (17-20 were easy though, more balls help sometimes)

And king



[ATTACH]7102[/ATTACH]

guide on rllmuk for very high scores..
http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?sh ... try8014562

I wanted to download this, but it's 20.4 MB, so I cannot. You can't shave 400KB off it, guys?

Well have a go. It was 19.6 or something just before release but we put some extra pictures of our faces in it.

I'll have a look at trimming some stuff for the next release but there isn't a lot of wastage. It's the universal app thing that bloats it.

Wow, that's the most impressive developer feedback I've ever seen!

As I say, without being able to get near a wireless connection I'm someone who wants to play but can't.

Any chance of a WP7 port, or is it just too expensive and time-consuming to go through Microsoft's certification programme?

Not planning any ports at the moment. If it becomes a big hit then maybe we'll be tempted or hire someone to do it.

As long as it's not the bloke who ported your 8 bit budget games to the C64.

The shop is open. You'll need to close the game down properly and restart for it to work.\

JP

Bought :-D

And while not many people have bought it , I can be 2nd in the world !

Hurrah! Bought! Now to try and actually go to sleep, instead of sitting up until 2am playing the damn thing...

No Android version makes me sad.

Damnit. I was 34th on the way home last night and had the same thoughts, but didnt get much time to build up a score. I'm currently 19th on the iPhone list (Zaphod is 1st). I'm ignoring the worldwide list as it must be far, far easier on iPad

Thanks everyone. If you don't have an iphone or ipad buy an iphone or ipad please.

Bought the DLC in a heartbeat. I'm one table away from straight Ss on the first set of levels.

This game needs iPhone<->iPad syncing though. My scores are on the iPhone but it's quite a bit easier to judge narrow angles on the iPad's larger screen, which is becoming more important on the bigger, more complex levels.

Disagree. On the serious tables, on the iPhone you can't see your percentage strength of shot when you are playing a tiny nudge as your finger is over the number. I assume that on the iPad, bigger balls = Bigger numbers = easier to see. Also, I assume that it is easier to manipulate a shot variation by 1 degree on the iPad than the iPhone.

Accordingly, iPad is easier than the iPhone, so should not be corrupting my 11th place in the Worldwide league

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say!