Digital Concepts New Product Announcement: RocketElite Gold

[Guest beckd]

RocketElite Gold

© Digital Concepts 2000-2003. All Rights Reserved.

Overview

One of the all-time best selling and critically acclaimed Pocket PC games, RocketElite, has been rebuilt, packed with great new features, and is being released as RocketElite Gold for Windows Powered Smartphone devices, Pocket PC devices, and desktop computers. RocketElite is an addictive fast-action space-shooter serving up oodles of polished gameplay. Once it's loaded, we dare you to stop!

Screenshots

Features

- Blistering performance! All the sound and graphics code for this game, as well as the game engine itself, were created from scratch and optimized for each device type.

- Find players and compete head-2-head over the Internet with the new built-in Internet Multiplayer Match-Maker. Multiplayer features a "low bandwidth" mode for Smartphone and Pocket PC users playing over cellular networks. Or save on bandwidth costs, cradle your device, and play through your desktop computer's connection. Wired/wireless/home networks also supported.

- Game includes a 45 level single-player campaign. There are currently nearly 30 additional levels available for free download. All levels are also designed for multiplayer deathmatch.

- Game engine includes object physics, transparencies, particle effects, and a full scrolling background. The entire game is designed around fixed-point arithmetic for lightning speed, realistic physics, and smooth animation.

- Smart AI opponents of varying difficulties and devastating weapons, all upgradeable.

- Unlimited Replayability. In addition to all the levels that come with the game, players can create or download additional single level or multilevel "campaign style" add-ons for use with RocketElite. A user-friendly level creation tool and instructions are also available.

- Multiple Difficulty Settings: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Insane. There are a number of changes to the game play at each difficulty setting to keep the game challenging for everyone.

- New soundtrack.

- Plenty of ship upgrades and power-ups along the way. The ship has 5 categories of ship upgrades that have a total of 6 levels each. The categories are: Fuel Systems, Deflector Shield, Tractor Beam, Weapons, and Defensive Systems.

- Persistent ship upgrades. Once you obtain an upgrade it will stay with you until you complete the campaign.

- Each level has unique graphics and environmental effects to deal with and adapt to.

- Multiplayer interface engine optimized for a high-speed, lag-free gaming experience.

- Multiple & configurable control options.

Drop by the RocketElite web page: http://www.RocketElite.com/ and preview add-on levels, talk to players, view the online high score table, etc.

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I just wanted to thank everyone for supporting our Smartphone products which made this very ambitious Smartphone title possible. The amount of depth and playtime to this title are limitless. Especially with the addition of the built-in multiplayer match-maker which will allow you to easily find and play opponents.

Unfortunately the full version is not available yet, but it will be soon. In the mean time, a demo version is available:

http://www.dig-concepts.com/

This game is the product of many months of work to make it a permanent addition to your phone. I hope you all enjoy this one.

Douglas Beck

Digital Concepts

http://www.dig-concepts.com/

[Guest ClintEastman]

Looking Good!!!

Will try it out later (At bloody work at the mo :) )

[Guest beckd]

Oh, a couple more comments about this title. First off, RocketElite Gold for the SPV will include all 45 levels of the original Pocket PC version as well as support all the add-on levels created by users. Great efforts went to reduce the entire original to fit on the Smartphone.

Also, this game uses quite a bit of memory when running. If you have problems running, soft reset your device to clear out memory. The full version of the game will automatically shut down other applications, but this feature didn't make it into the demo version before it went off to certification/signing.

Finally, for those who like to have the "quit game" on the main menu of the game, you can manually edit the config.txt in the install directory of the game to make the menu option show. I added this just for you guys :)

Douglas Beck

Digital Concepts

http://www.dig-concepts.com/

[Guest ClintEastman]

Finally, for those who like to have the "quit game" on the main menu of the game, you can manually edit the config.txt in the install directory of the game to make the menu option show.  I added this just for you guys :)

You sir are a gent! :(

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

I almost identify Digital Concepts titles now by the inclusion of that 'pixelisation' effect, hehehe.... :)

P

[Guest Gorskar]

Excellent work!

Love what I've tried sofar to bits.

What's people's best scores on the demo level? I managed to get 17898, but I'm sure I could do better...

Anyway, looking forward to the full version - If you could let me or David Horn know when its ready I'd apprieciate it :)

[Guest spacemonkey]

OK, it doesn't seem to really work for me... I go new game, it starts loading (the screen full of text with a progress bar) and then it just crashes.

My phone has over 6 Mb of Phys. momory free (as viewed in task manager) and runs everything else fine. The game is installed on the Storage Card.

Edit - forget that, it's working now... I think I may have still been a smidgen short on memory... Looks good, I'll have to wait and play it later... my boss is starting to look annoyed :)

[Guest chocobogo]

Multiplayer?? How??

[Guest Lojt]

Any idea how much this game is going to cost? Hopefully not as much as the pocketpc version....

[Guest spacemonkey]

OK, I've played it a bit more... the game itself is GREAT, I just love it.

A couple of things tho (might just be my phone...) It is very demanding on memory, the load times (like when you go new game) are terribly slow.

Another more important issue, when you exit (only way I found was pressing home when at the menu) it still runs in the background (that's what microsoft wants), BUT if you load taskmanager it is not listed as an APP it only appears on the processes list. Just for task manager this isn't too important, but for the OS it's bad... when the OS decides to free some resources it will close "apps" but it won't close processes, so RocketElite won't be automatically closed by the OS and since it's taking up over 5Mb of memory, that is a BIG ISSUE.

Anyway, I realise the demo is probably early code for smartphone, just thought I'd report this issue.

[Guest Lojt]

OK, I've played it a bit more... the game itself is GREAT, I just love it.

A couple of things tho (might just be my phone...)  It is very demanding on memory, the load times (like when you go new game) are terribly slow.

Another more important issue, when you exit (only way I found was pressing home when at the menu) it still runs in the background (that's what microsoft wants), BUT if you load taskmanager it is not listed as an APP it only appears on the processes list.  Just for task manager this isn't too important, but for the OS it's bad...  when the OS decides to free some resources it will close "apps" but it won't close processes, so RocketElite won't be automatically closed by the OS and since it's taking up over 5Mb of memory, that is a BIG ISSUE.

Anyway, I realise the demo is probably early code for smartphone, just thought I'd report this issue.

Finally, for those who like to have the "quit game" on the main menu of the game, you can manually edit the config.txt in the install directory of the game to make the menu option show. I added this just for you guys  

:)

[Guest spacemonkey]

Should have read it a bit closer :)

Still has the problem of not being a background app properly.

beckd, the best method for the closing other apps your after is I think SHCloseApps, you just call it with the amount of memory you want and the OS should sort everything out. (Except this call won't close RocketElite cos it's not a background app, it's a background process :( )

[Guest beckd]

Thanks for pointing that out, spacemonkey. The SHCloseApps is in the full version already but I didn't know about the background process issue. I'll take care of it. As for load times, I thought they were exceptional myself. The data can simply not be decompressed & loaded for a level any faster without making a trade-off such as install size or graphics quality.

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

When do you expect to be releasing the full version Douglas?

P

[Guest beckd]

I'm actively finalizing this title. It's a few weeks away at the earliest.

[Guest kevlar]

I love the game, but is it me or is it very hard? If you watch the demo in the demo ( confused? ), I can't believe it was recorded on the spv, way too much control being displayed, or am I just getting old?

Kevlar

[Guest spacemonkey]

I think the "demo" may not have been done on the SPV, but it's good to show us what to strive for :)

In Options/Control options you can switch it between arcade mode and Classic mode which has some effect on what you can do...

[Guest James]

i installed the game last night after leaving work!!! wow its good! but o my god its hard to get good at!!! watched the demo i could not believe it!!!

had one bug though, when i first ran the game i did not have enough free memory so i got a screen saying i did not have enough mem free...went to click 'ok' to clear the screen and the phone locked up. had to take the battery out.

great game though!

[Guest vijay555]

Could it be possible to include a low mem monochrome version of the maps, with no sound?

Tell u the truth, 4 a good play experience i'd rather just wait 4 it to load, but perhaps?

BTW, had this game on pocketpc, and, although i cheated to finish the game, I have to say: it rocks!

BUY

V

[Guest Richie M]

damn when i go to http://www.dig-concepts.com/ all i get is a black page :?

can you post a direct link to the demo please

TIA

[Guest Gorskar]

Wierd, it works for me!

http://www.rocketelite.com/dloadtrial.php?device=SP

[Guest beckd]

Hey, all. Just some more follow-up information.

First off, to help reduce the install size (for those who don't have storage cards), there are two files that can be deleted after the install. One is the objective graphics for all 45 levels. This changes the graphics from graphical objective screens to text as shown:

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In addition users can also choose to delete the sound archive which will remove all sounds & music from the game. Combined, removing these two files will save 1.3, reducing the total install size to 2.7megs.

There is also an excellent level editor & documentation available to help people create their own levels. Below the level editor is shown editing a multiplayer level called Zero G Arena created by JDM of Electronic Arts.

Also, to help users creating their own levels, there is a Developer Mode built into the game that will allow users to see and debug levels they've designed. See below:

[Guest ClintEastman]

What depth!!

Great work!

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

Can't WAIT for the final release of this :)

P

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I'll buy it just for the level editor :)