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Is TinyWars for Mobile or PC?
Is TinyWars for Mobile or PC? 1280 720 andrew

I get asked the question all the time: “What platform is it going to be released on?”

Of course the answer is Android & IOS. (Cool everyone gets that!) AND also for PC. And this is where people start scratching their heads…

TinyWars to be released for IOS, Android, and PC

IOS and Android are pretty self explanatory. The touch controls are identical, and most games are released on both platforms anyways. The game can be controlled via a keyboard, such as pressing “esc” will bring up the pause menu or using the arrow keys will pan the camera view. Without the keyboard, the game can be navigated exactly the same way using touch gestures or the scroll wheel on the mouse.

What about performance?

This is a video showing the newest build of the TinyWars Story Demo running smoothly on our test device, which is a HTC Google Nexus 9 Android tablet. This video is just showing the new main menu (which has lots of particles in it) and the new overworld map, which is over 6000 pixels wide and contains very high quality artwork.

The particles loaded on the mobile version and the PC version are the same. Though we do have the ability to control the assets which are loaded, depending on the operating system, we have not incurred a situation where the performance on mobile was severely limited. (We may implement options for players to disable all particle effects if it really does take a toll on their device, but we anticipate that the majority of players will have a smooth experience.)

1:1 Versions

Because the PC, Android, and IOS versions of the game will essentially be identical in every way, we are thinking about ways in which the player might be able to load their saved data from the cloud and resume their game on any device.

 

This would require the player to need to have an account with us, which requires database, internet connection, and other verification such as the player’s full purchase of the software and keys. Right now, this feature is on the back-burner since the Story Demo is still in the works, but it is a feature that I want TinyWars to have. This is the type of game that can be enjoyed both sitting at a computer and on the go, and this requires the player to be able to have access to their saved data at all times.

What about the transaction?

Now this is the most complicated part of the whole idea and something that needs to be planned carefully. If someone buys the game off Steam for full price, will they be able to have access to the mobile versions for free? If someone buys the mobile versions, will they be able to have access to the Steam version without paying?

 

I have an idea for the solution which involves the first 10 levels of the game to be completely free on all platforms. Steam, the App Store, and GooglePlay would merely be distribution centers for the game, but let’s say for example, the player completes the first 10 levels of the game, it’s an idea that a prompt might appear telling the player that they need to create an account and buy the game in order to continue.

 

This does solve the problem of having players accidentally be charged twice for the game if they decided they wanted both a PC and mobile version of the game. The next issue is, who would handle the transaction?

Of course, these are all problems we will have to deal with in the future, but we are thinking about these things now as it is very important to have a solid plan when these issues finally do become relevant! Since the final game probably won’t be complete for another 2 years, we do have plenty of time to continue planning this out. We’d love to see other games that employ a similar model and learn from other successful titles.

 

Are there other titles which are directly 1:1 from the PC and mobile versions? And how do they handle their payments? These are topic for further research.

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The New TinyWars
The New TinyWars 1080 607 andrew

Welcome to the new TinyWars! We are working every day to produce the finished product, or at least a replica of it. The “Story Demo” of TinyWars is the reflection of the final product, and likewise, the features, gameplay elements, and graphics are set to be 1:1 with that of the final game. Of course, this is a demo, which means it might only contain 10% of the content we would have in the final game.

What To Expect in the Demo

We are running on a limited budget here, but I had plans to include at least the first 10 – 15 quests in this demo. That should just about cover the bulk of the “Stump Town” which is the first world players will experience in the full game. As you can see by the map (game screen mockup) below, there is a lot of further worlds planned for the game, but each world should have more than enough content to provide hours of gameplay.

 

This story demo itself should have plenty of content for someone to experience a good taste of the project. The goal is to have a good deal of content packed into this demo to provide a meaningful experience. I can’t expect people to want to buy or support our project based on the previous “Gameplay Prototype” that we released on PC and Android last year. That was merely a tech demo as well as a concept for showing off our art and music styles, but does not provide any meaningful content or a proper taste of what is really to come.

 

It is also quite difficult to maintain a social media and online marketing campaign for a project which has no content released. There’s only so much we can talk about when it comes to the ideas we want to have in our game, as opposed to actually showing off the features and content of the game itself. This new “Story Demo” will really reshape the image of TinyWars as well as our media campaign as a whole.

Quests

The game utilizes quests as the primary mechanic for progressing through the story. Not all of the quests are mandatory of course, but players who choose to go above and beyond on the optional quests will be rewarded for their efforts! What are these rewards? The rewards could come in the form of a few things which would be meaningful to the new mechanics of this game.

Virtual Currency

Right off the bat, I want to say that we really do not intend to have players use real money into order to obtain any of the virtual currency (Of course, that really depends on our financial forecast and how confident we would be in sales of the game or crowdfunding.) The items for virtual currency include: Gold Magical Mushroom Spores, and The Blood of the Witch (Or the Blood of Mother).

The two virtual currency units will be used in different ways that can shape the way your units function and behave! This is because we have greatly expanded upon the traditional model of a “tower defense” game that we have been used to playing in the past.

Expanded Gameplay Model

We actually try very hard NOT to refer to our game as a “tower defense” game. Many people are immediately turned off from that word due to the negative connotation a tower defense game holds in the gaming community. I have heard things such as “tower defense games are simple and boring,” to things like, “tower defense games are basically copy/paste style games, gets old after a while.” We want to assure our fans that TinyWars is NOT a traditional tower defense game by any means!

 

While our game does maintain the core elements of a traditional tower defense game (building units, defending against waves of enemies, upgrades, etc.), we have greatly expanded upon that model and have added some elements that are less traditional in a tower defense game. (I’m not sure if any tower defense game exists that holds these gameplay mechanics!) The virtual currency comes into play due to the ability to purchase more permanent items in the game.

 

If you are familiar with tower defense, then you already understand how unit upgrades do not persist from level to level. Each level begins with basic units which need to be upgraded as you earn currency through defeating enemies in each wave. Part of the reason I believe many people will refer to tower defense as boring is due to the nature of this system. I have definitely experienced times when I have played through 20+ levels of a tower defense game and it started to feel old when I have to start with basic units over and over again.

 

We’ve added a system that will allow the player to progressively increase and maintain persistent upgrades from level to level. I truly believe we have an original gameplay model on our hands, a sort of hybrid between tower defense and an RPG game. Because of this, I really do not want to spill the details until we get to a point where I can display a gameplay video and really break down and discuss how the gameplay works! (Sorry!)

Story

Of course, this is called the “Story Demo” for a reason! You will get a glimpse into the full story of TinyWars from the very start of the game til the demo ends. Each level begins and ends with a short cutscene that progresses the story a little further. Not all of the cutscenes have been fully written for the game yet, though the main story and plot points have already been established. We have designed the cutscenes to leave little cliffhangers which encourage the player to continue to the next level to find out what happens next!

 

Just a glimpse into the TinyWars story as a whole. Just like life, the beginning is filled with fun, light hatred joy and some painful moments. As the game progresses, we will explore the life of our main characters as they begin to develop their friendships and establish their role in their life. We will see the characters transform and the friendships strengthen over time. Of course, as the story continues, the tone will begin to get progressively darker and darker until we hit a few key turning points.

The Combined Experience

Combining all of the new elements from map exploration, virtual currency, new gameplay mechanics and story will really help to create the full fledged TinyWars experience that I have been wanting to share with the world for quite some time now. I have not even discussed the music or artwork in this post, but I hope that some of the media shared above drove the point across. This is the point in which I believe we are developing a AAA title here, and we’re putting the remaining budget into this Story Demo. I hope it will be one heck of an experience for you all, I’ll post further updates as we continue to progress in this long journey ahead of us.

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What We’ve Learned About TinyWars
What We’ve Learned About TinyWars 1560 1040 andrew

Post Fan Art Competition – Popular Character? Oh Yeah!

popularity-indicator

This is a popularity indicator generated based on results from our contest’s Judges. The lovely character Kumo, appears to be an extremely popular character being featured in 23/70 entries. What this tells us is that, regarding the pacing of the game and how long we spend time with each character, Kumo’s arc should be lengthened to satisfy the demand for this character. (But not too long, part of this character’s appeal is her mysterious aura and backstory.)

kumo-fan-arts

Artists from top, left to right: SoloEsper01, Janthida, Hyperion-Yamazaki, MiahWolf, emiyana, iorisu

What does this mean for the rest of the cast?

drawxangel-all-the-girls

Contest Entry by DrawXAngel

The rest of the cast won’t be changed or redesigned. Their designs are solid and each of them have their own unique story! There is currently no game content of TinyWars or even any story really released yet, so I do not have any concern about Kumo’s popularity over the rest of the girls. Kumo was specifically designed to look “mysterious” and “intriguing.”

vkingstudio-fan-art-b

Entry by VKingStudio

Progress Update For Gameplay Prototype

As scheduled, the gameplay prototype should be ready for play testing this month! We have currently finished implementing the final wave to this prototype level. As far as the game’s content goes, it is complete! However there are a few more technical features that need to be completed before the prototype is ready for testing, these include:

TO DO LIST

  • Implement a “Level Complete” screen at the end of the level
  • Implement a basic menu system (Provide developer info, build info, and basic menu options)
  • Disable the incredibly buggy “fast forward” feature (It’s not going to work for this build!)
  • Actually do a play through and make sure it is POSSIBLE to beat the demo with perfect health!
  • Might leave the test controls enabled so people can have fun experimenting with the game. (Spawns enemies, adds money, etc.)

spore-1

Remember this little test creature that looks like it was drawn in MS Paint? We’ve grown quite fond of it.

spore-2-new

His sprite has been enhanced by our lovely artist, LaDollBlanche.

Things to Consider

Many features of this gameplay prototype will be changed in future builds and demos. Particularly the menu system and general theme of the GUI will be revised to fall more in line with the “tiny” theme. Certain enemy sprites and enemies themselves might be changed.

sleepy-2

The prototype is one single sandbox level. It was designed simply so we could develop all the features that the TinyWars game would run on. There are some specific advanced features that have not been implemented, but we have implemented the core features that most of the levels will run on! (We have a few special levels planned)

mushy-2

Because this prototype is designed for testing, there are a variety of enemies that spawn in each wave. In a normal level we would not have this much variety of enemies. Ideally, we would want to build it up, or keep all the enemies within a specific theme. In this prototype you will encounter a bunch of different enemies that look like they came from all sorts of different places. It  looks like a mess on screen and doesn’t have any predictability to it.

spider-test-1

Why Tower Defense?

The purpose of this gameplay prototype is to show off some unique features of TinyWars and show that this is NOT your ordinary tower defense game. Someone had suggested to me that we call this a “Siege Game” because “Tower Defense” has such negative associations with it. Specifically tower defense is seen as an old, “dead” and over done genre of video games that is usually associated with people’s first games.

I have a feeling that tower defense, especially for mobile is still a pretty strong genre. Games like Radiant Defense which had been on the app store’s top list several times and other great TD games are all inspirations for TinyWars. However, I will say that I am generally disappointed with most tower defense games that are anime themed. Why do I want to play anime themed games? Is it to see overly sexualized witches with subpar gameplay? No of course not… (I mean I guess some people wouldn’t have a problem with that!)

Why anime theme in general?

Because we have a compelling story to tell. The anime artwork and design is an art style we choose to go with because we have a particularly interesting and engaging story to tell. I know other “anime” games use the anime theme for the sake of being anime, but we have our motivations and I hope that our hard work, whether in writing or in the gameplay, will not go unnoticed!

Interested in Beta Testing?

If you are interested in becoming a beta tester for the prototype, the easiest way to get in touch with us is through our facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/TinyWarsGame/

Feel free to send us a message and tell us that you’re interested in becoming a beta tester. It’s going to be pretty easy, nothing much you have to do besides play the game and if possible, do a screen recording of the gameplay! Simple right? 🙂

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