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BattleTap is a spell-slinging competition for two players. Each player creates a spell by picking an element and an attack pattern, then casts it by tapping a random sequence of buttons. The faster tapper receives a power boost to their spell. Will you have the most health left when the dust settles?
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VERSION 1.1
Last Updated: September 21, 2022
I have tweaked the Analytics so that they work the way I intended. Other that that, this is the same "Rock-Paper-Scissors" meets speed tapping game it was when uploaded for the first time about 10 minutes ago.
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May 18, 2016
Pretty cool game! One of the first iPhone games too :). Question, why did you set it up as portrait, when the game is all in landscape view?
May 19, 2016
My concern with landscape view was that if the phone was tipped side to side during a game it would rotate the screen and that would flip the player interfaces.
May 17, 2016
It's a cool idea, but I don't like the rock paper scissor thing because a disadvantaged player can sometimes lose even if the other player doesn't do anything 😕. Perhaps you should make the spell system more complex by making a spell take "mana" (taps) and allow players to have multiple types of spells (e.g. Large spread low damage, one bullet high damage, shield, etc.) equipped at once, so one player doesn't start with a huge advantage.
May 17, 2016
Thanks for the feedback!
TL;DR: If you tap fastest, never pick the Wall pattern. Element choice will have less impact on who wins.
It's true that when different elements are selected that generally supersedes the bonus from tapping fastest but if you play your cards right it's possible to reduce how often that happens. If both players randomly choose their elements and spell patterns, the element will dictate who wins about 67% of the time. Being the fastest tapper will determine the outcome 33% of the time: when players pick the same element or pick the two spell patterns that pass each other with little to no interaction. What this means is that a player confident in their tapping ability should never pick the spell pattern that looks like a wall, thereby reducing how often the spells will run into each other. Doing this will allow tapping speed to determine the winner 44% of the time... and if both players skip the Wall pattern then tapping determines outcome 67% of the time.
There are competing camps when it comes to the idea that a "rock-paper-scissors" game is pure luck versus being a game of psychological skill, but if you believe the latter you can work on getting better at that, too. :)
May 18, 2016
I definitely don't think there is any real skill involved in playing "rock paper scissors" mechanics unless the opponent is predictable. It's not that bad in this because on average the best player wins, but I don't particularly like the randomness. Are you planning to add anything else or not?
May 18, 2016
I'm not planning to change much related to the game mechanic of this version at this point. My goal was to test out the latest beta version of hyperPad by building something using RPS as the core mechanic that was a bit more interesting from my perspective and yet kept the randomness that allowed an unskilled player (i.e. my five-year-old) to win a moderate amount of the time. I may add some polish, but that's probably about it.
All that said, I have previously put quite a bit of thought into a game that included all the elements you mentioned - seeing as how I think they are fun - and a few others but it was a player vs. hordes set-up rather than a player vs. player one... and you have me pondering mixing that up a bit. I had something else planned as a next project but maybe I'll play with this instead.