DARK - STAR app for iPhone and iPad
Developer: Andrew Madden
First release : 18 Nov 2015
App size: 192.7 Mb
Dark Star is an epic arcade shoot-em-up in deepest, darkest space.
Pilot your spacecraft through waves of bad guys – barrel-rolling your way ever closer to huge scores and bigger explosions.
Inspired by classic arcade games from the 80’s and 90’s, Dark Star recaptures that same addictive gameplay but with graphics that finally live up to what those old box arts promised.
Features:
• Stunning 3D graphics (running at 60fps on new devices)
• All the brilliance and frustration of old-school arcade style challenges
• Unique one finger controls
• Upgradable and unlockable spaceships
• Shoot down enemy ships, clear space junk, dodge missiles and take on giant battle cruisers with a continually evolving mission structure
• Most importantly - Barrel Rolls!
Please note, this game features NO in-app purchases. Once you own Dark Star you’ll get all updates, fixes and new content for free, forever.
Want fancier graphics or a smoother frame rate? Check under the options menu for the graphics switch (in most cases the best graphics settings will be set automatically, we just included it as an option so you can tailor your own space experience to taste).
Questions, comments, queries or requests for things you would like to see in an update can be sent to us at [email protected]
Plays best on an iPhone 5 / iPad Air or newer.
Latest reviews of DARK - STAR app for iPhone and iPad
Deleting immediately. Controls are terrible. Judging where object are on the screen is nearly impossible. Shooting scheme is terrible.
On the surface, Dark Star seems neat enough: its a straightforward, simple, pretty, and fast-paced rail shooter with an interesting control scheme, and I did make an effort to try to like this game. Underneath, though, it suffers from some serious problems. My complaints: The way the levels, asteroids, and enemy projectiles curve along with the often-deceptively small movement range make it hard to eyeball where to dodge in a game thats all about dodging, especially when the bullet barrages are flying directly into and covering up the camera. This same issue also makes stars more difficult to collect than they should be, which is bad since they are required for ship upgrades. The random level generator is also flawed: the difficulty level can vary wildly from area to area, to the point that you can occasionally play a stage where no enemies appear at all. Personally, I also think that the level design grows repetitive quickly and provides little sense of progression, but that is more of a matter of opinion. And though this is also subjective, I find the slowdown combined with the loss of control when barrel rolling to be very annoying given that I can already move from end to end of the screen with long swipes. This is especially unpleasant because of how finicky the controls can be: if I try to repeatedly swipe the screen with one thumb to move the ship quickly and tap on an enemy to attack it, the game will register my actions as a double-tap and cause the ship to execute a barrel roll. All of these factors combine to make the already-bland mission system also uses for unlocking upgrades that the game uses to enhance longevity feel like tedious busy work. While Dark Star does have potential as a rail shooter, an ARC Squadron it is not, and it needs a great amount of tweaking before it can be called enjoyable.
Well, the graphics look cool, but this thing is so lame. No story. Gameplay jumps from 1 of 5 random environments to the next, and there are limited weapons. Why is this thing even $2? Dont waste your money because of its good looks! Youve been warned.
But Id like to see a joystick for controlling the ship and some sensitivity control as well as a rapid-fire with a constant press instead of the crazy tapping. Then maybe some weapon variety! Then were talking about a real good game here!
The control scheme requires you to control the ship movement all over the screen with your one hand and tap each enemy to then fire while trying to maneuver. Its ridiculous. You cant see anything with both hands all over the screen. Its frustrating. I feel like I wasted money since I cant even play.