Thrust 1.3.0-beta released - your help needed!


I've released something I've needed to do for a long time.  I haven't worked on Thrust 30 for too long... Since my macbook pro was stolen, I lost the ability to rebuild the iOS version, and since let my developer licence expire.   I also lost all my Mobile build scripts which I keep outside of the public repo.  

Based on feedback from the Android Play Store - lots of players were reporting bad touch controls, and broken controls in general.  I knew the touch controls in particular weren't great, particularly on small screens, but I hadn't realised how bad they were until seeing all the negative feedback.  So I tried out the game on some phones I had lying around, and realised they were totally right: The touch controls were useless, and the gamepad controls had completely broken at some point!

I spent the last couple of weeks recreating my build pipelines for iOS, Android and Web, I bought a cheap Mac Mini from 2012 which has 16GB of RAM and can run latest OSX (required to build and launch on iOS) this means I will be restoring my iOS developer licence.  And have a nice build machine again for everything Thrust 30!.

Next I set about working on the controls and found these issues, which are hopefully now resolved:

  1. NEW Touch controls - sometimes touch controls would fail, or thrust or rotate would activate when you clearly weren't touching them. I've made the buttons much bigger than they were and totally reworked the touch conntrol.  This should hopefully now fixed, but it is really hard to check (while you're playing on your phone, did you miss the rotate button or did the button fail? you're looking at the game, so you're never sure... THIS is where I really  need YOUR help  to test this.
  2. NEW Gamepad controls - the gamepad controls weren't working at all. I've totally reimplimented gamepad support so it should hopefully now be working.  I only have a wired XBOX 360 controller to test this, so again I really need your help!
  3. Keyboard controls - Keyboard controls were working pretty well since the first release - but obviously would only be good for Web users or those with a keyboard.  This should still continue to work as it did, but I would like feedback from users who have keyboard attachments for tablet devices, or other ways of playing Thrust 30 with keys.  
  4. New Keyboard controls: TODO - I would like to add support for redefining keys, or even selecting between predefined key layouts such as CLASSIC THRUST (A,S, Enter, Space Bar) and Cursor keys (the current configuration).  Feedback is welcome here.
  5. PERFORMANCE: Performance varies greatly between devices - it's way faster on newer Desktops than a phone from a few years ago... I've enabled FPS counter in the top right of the display so you can report bad performance.  FPS should be no lower than 30 in general and be 55-60 fps on powerful new desktops  (Please include your device and specs in any perforance reports)


If you'd lilke to help test just load up the game in your browser on Desktop / Laptop / Mobile / Tablet, play with keys / Touch screen or plugin a gamepad and report any issues here.

Many thanks, and happy Thrusting! 

Files

bundle.zip Play in browser
Sep 26, 2020

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Please note that 1.3.0 is only available here on itch, the version currently on Android is not the most up to date - so for testing please only play in the browser on the Thrust 30 page here on itch (it will open full screen when you go to the page and click Run Game.