Battle Fleet just received an excellent review on the iPhone Life blog. Reviewer Nate Adcock says:

"If you want to get a whiff of the experience of commanding a fleet in the Pacific in a naval battle, this is your game. "


You can read the full review at iPhoneLife.com

I have just released the Free Lite (demo) version of Battle Fleet for the iPad. If you have friends who would like to try out the game, send them to the App Store at: http://bit.ly/battlefleetlite

The Lite version includes the first mission of the US Campaign and online multiplayer with limited ships and weapons options. If you have the full version you can also play against owners of the Lite version. 

Version 1.3 of Battle Fleet, which is just around the corner, will feature a ton of new updates will will include a new Aiming mode called Angle Assist. This mode addresses the concerns of players who find the aiming very difficult, as well as equalize the playing field for multiplayer games. Angle Assist shows a green line from your selected turret making it easier to set the angle for the shot, but will show fewer range circles around the ship making it more difficult to estimate the distance. 

For players who prefer the old aiming system, you will still be able to play the game with the Distance Assist mode which keeps everything the same. 

Personally I think that the Angle Assist mode is actually a bit more realistic as the real trick to aiming the guns of WW2 warships was getting the distance to your target rather than the direction. Either way, it's a fun change and worth trying out even if you are a veteran player.

I've recorded a video of the playthrough for the first mission in the US Campaign of Battle Fleet. Check it out if you're having a tough time figuring out the controls or want to see some tips on general gameplay. 

I'm pleased to announce that Battle Fleet is now available through the Mac Game Store, a really cool independent online game retailer for Macs. Check out their awesome collection of games and help support cool distribution platforms that give Mac users options outside of the Mac App Store.

The new aircraft carrier feature introduced in v1.21 allows you to launch an airstrike every turn. Each carrier is equipped with 4 flights of fighter bombers. Every turn you can launch a flight and either use it to strike against an enemy ship or put it in air defense mode and protect your carrier.

The Airstrike mode is similar to the Airstrike Command Card that was previously available. When you select an Airstrike you set your target and the angle of the airstrike, which you would use to align with the direction of the ship you are targeting to get maximum effectiveness. The difference is that now enemy ships can defend against airstrikes, so depending on the number of flights they have set on Air Defense and the number of AA guns they have installed, your attacking flight could be shot down and/or damaged. 

The Air Defense mode will give your flight orders to intercept any enemy airstrikes within a radius around your carrier. This doesn't guarantee that it will stop an enemy airstrike but it will at least damage their attacking flight. 

You can also arm your ships with AA guns (during the Turret selection menu) which will automatically fire on attacking aircraft. A combination of AA guns and Air Defense flights will go far to keeping your fleet safe from enemy airstrikes. 

Got a chance to go down to San Francisco last week for WWDC and besides meeting a ton of great developers and cool people, Toucharcade writer Brad Nicholson mentioned the upcoming changes to Battle Fleet on Toucharcade.com. Thanks Brad! 

For anyone else working on app development, don't underestimate the importance of getting out there and meeting people in the industry. If you have a chance to go to a conference or industry event, take it! I wouldn't necessarily recommend paying for a ridiculously expensive WWDC ticket but why not just go to the parties and other free events around the conference :)

Part 1 of a cool documentary about Battleships I found on Youtube. I think i need to add more battleship missions to the game :)

We've just released a video playthrough for the Battle Fleet tutorial. If you haven't played the tutorial and just want to see everything you might have missed then check out this video.