Development

TinyWars 2016 Recap [Part 2]

TinyWars 2016 Recap [Part 2] 1920 1080 andrew

Back in Part 1, I discussed the amazing relationship we share with our Art Team. In this post, I want to finish recapping my thoughts about 2016 and talk a little about our goals for 2017.

I ALSO want to talk about the incredible Music Team that we worked with! One of the big compliments we received from our prototype release was the incredible use of music.

In this post beta survey, one of the results of the questions is shown above. The question was to select the specific items on the list that you recall enjoying about the beta. Soundtrack wins by far.

The Music Team

The TinyWars music team is an incredible collection of musicians from around the world! However, unlike the artists, we do not have constant work being delivered to musicians. Music composition and recording is incredibly long work. We have waited anywhere from 6 – 12 months for a single piece to be recorded and mastered fully.

 

If you haven’t played our prototype or heard our official theme song, much of the music is live recorded and does take a significant amount of time to create. Some of our soundtrack was pre-composed, but almost always required some sort of remastering or modification from the artists before they were confident in delivering an acceptable rendering for our use. In either case, while the relationship we have with the musicians of TinyWars is a little different from the relationship we have with our full time art team, we hold the music of the game as one of the highest points of the project, and likewise, our musicians are some of the most respected members of the team!

 

I have embedded tracks from each of theses artists, I invite you to listen to each piece while reading my commentary about their work!

Edwin Toh

Pictured above is the recording session for the TinyWars Theme Song, Longing for Love.

Edwin’s ability to compose these orchestrated pieces really blew us away. He was one of the very first large contracts we had with a musician, and his theme song will be one of the major set pieces of the game, adding tremendous production value to the project overall. We hope that when players experience our game, and the music ques, that they will be instantly transported into another world.

So far, this was Edwin’s only contribution to the project, but it is a very important contribution which is why I want to thank and recognize him first in this list. The game would not be the same without his music.

Taichi HIYAMA

Taichi HIYAMA is another incredible composer and musician, his works primarily feature a recording of him playing the main violin sequences himself. He has some work for our project, some I can’t reveal quite yet! But I want to say that his music is top notch and we have utilized some of his tracks in the prototype, including this one:

I would love to spend more time talking about Hiyama’s style and how his contributions have really shaped the atmosphere of the game, but unfortunately we haven’t released our Story Demo yet, so you guys will just have to take my word for it! 😉

Farhan

Farhan’s work was featured in our gameplay prototype as the main menu theme. And while this was not the original intended purpose for his song, it really worked out nicely as the main menu theme and first impression of the game! Everybody loved it. Unfortunately, his track will be removed from the main menu in the final project, as we had intended to use it in the Second Chapter of the TinyWars story as part of the “Candy Castle” Arch.

Again, it’s very difficult for me to speak about music and its use in a game that has yet to be released, so I will let the music speak for itself!

ヨギ (Yogi)

This is a song that I think is highly under appreciated, maybe it’s my fault for making the prototype so difficult! This song plays during the final sequence of the TinyWars prototype, and it is one of the happiest songs I have ever heard. When I first heard this tune from ヨギ, I probably listened to it over 100 times on endless loop. It was great! I promise this song will not play on endless loop in the game, but I have no problem adding electronic music to our game as well!

 

 

The rest of the Music Team

The rest of our music team is incredible, it’s unfortunate that we have not been able to reveal even a fraction of the pieces we have for the game, though everyone has been credited on the Official Credits Page. We hope you will be able to fully enjoy the work that everyone has put into this project! We only talked about a few musicians here, because some of their work has already been showcased in an official release from us. However, the rest of the team is incredible, and we have many beautiful and emotional pieces for you to experience!

 

The reason I chose to only talk about the 4 musicians above, was because their music has been featured in one of our end products, I believed I would be able to have a more significant discussion of these musicians work knowing that their music is actually featured in one of our released products. Though we are still pretty limited since our gameplay prototype was generally lacking in content.

 

 

2017!

What awaits us next year is going to be a rush to release our Story Demo. I have listed some goals in previous updates, but basically we need to accomplish some major things in order to release this demo:

  • Complete animations (art)
  • Complete the assets required for the new “book theme” (art)
  • Complete the assets for the new levels (art)
  • Optimize the current build before adding new content/references (code)
  • Create the assets required for the Story Telling cutscenes (art)
  • Obviously, code in the new content (code)

 

You will notice there are no music goals in this list of things to accomplish. Fortunately, the music for our project has mostly been taken care of, not all of it, but a huge chunk of what has been planned in advanced has been taken care of.

 

As for as non-development related goals go:

  • We’d like to achieve 5K – 10K fans on our social media pages before the demo is completed.
  • I want to discuss the possibility of a Patreon with the fans at some point, as the finalized assets and animations are starting to get very expensive!
  • Conduct a lot more art contests and giveaways in 2017 to continue engaging with our fan base and encouraging new fans to join!
  • I’d also like to begin making a larger footprint in the video game scene, as the demo could serve as an MVP for outside funding or potential partnerships with larger studios.

 

These are some of the goals I have in mind for 2017, I don’t know if we will accomplish them all, however for sure, I want to release our Story Demo at some point in 2017. Please understand it is very difficult to give an exact date, not because we lack structure and coordination, but because we are maintaining a high level of quality, and working with a large, and mostly remote, group of team members, it is really difficult for me to give an accurate ETA on the next release.

 

We do have internal deadlines, but they are not always met, and unfortunately, without assets properly in place for one piece, it may make it very difficult or impossible to develop another piece. This is one of the flaws in a final product first development approach, but I believe the positives far out weigh the negatives. We build our products keeping in mind the final product first and foremost. Everything is planned out and mapped out to the exact details BEFORE the coding happens, and this allows us to streamline the most costly portion of the entire development, the programming!

 

This is how Bizurk Software operates its usual web/app production, and it is a proven and successful method for developing full featured products in a very short amount of time. It is our first time developing a video game project, and the combination of artists, musicians, coders, and marketing is really a new and awesome experience for us. Hope to see the project continue to grow in 2017!

 

Thank you for following the TinyWars development blog! Be sure to follow the official Facebook Page for smaller updates and fun posts!

 

 

TinyWars 2016 Recap [Part 1]

TinyWars 2016 Recap [Part 1] 1920 1086 andrew

2016 Year Progress Report and Recap

Been working on the TinyWars project all year, there were a few bumps in the road but we’ve finally made it to 2016. Here’s a list of some things that we had accomplished:

There are two teams in particular that I really want to discuss. You guys have been blessed with seeing the amazing art and hearing the awesome music of our game, and I believe I should discuss our incredible art and music team a little bit, I feel the 2016 recap is an appropriate post for it!

Art Team

I do want to spend some time talking about the TinyWars are team. We have worked with a lot of different artists throughout the year for various specialized tasks, but there have been a few key artists who have stayed with the project for a very long time and I’d like to take some time to write about them.

 

LaDollBlanche

LaDollBlanche joined the project in June of 2015, and has been working with us for over a year on various tasks! Back in the early days of TinyWars, we needed character renders. The character designs came from various artists, but we wanted one artists to be in control of the final render that will be displayed in game. And boy does she do a fantastic job rendering our characters!

There’s a high degree of consistency with her renders and shading methods, which look very high quality and detailed. As you might have noticed however, her artwork has not really been featured much in the latest TinyWars Prototype. And as of recently, the TinyWars project is finally moving into the next phase, which is story intensive. Cutscenes will be making their way to the project and we hope you will be able to fully appreciate the work and skill the she has put into rendering every one of our characters.

LaDollBlanche has been a blessing to this project and is one of the artists that I can truly rely on. She’s been with us since, essentially the beginning of the project, and hopefully play a role in the completion of it as well. The characters are the face of TinyWars, and thus, her work is the face of this project!

 

Chibionpu

Chibionpu (Also goes by Nicole on DeviantArt) joined us in September 2015. I think, one of the most underappreciated assets to any project is background art, but Nicole does a fantastic job and I think her artwork is really going to shine in a project where background and perspectives is a huge emphasis. Her work is highly detailed, and one of the greatest things about her personality is the drive to continue improving and adding more and more details to pieces until they look so polished, I’m almost blinded by it!

I swear, when she first sent this piece to me, from the thumbnail, I thought it was a photograph! This is the depiction of the giant’s house from the game, and it looks like we’re viewing it from the perspective of a tiny person, really brilliant. As you have seen in the title image above this one, her background art blends well with LaDollBlanche’s character renders. The hardness of LaDollBlanche’s character renders meshes so well with the smooth, dream like details of Nicole’s background art!

Nicole is also helping us front the new design theme for the TinyWars demo. The “Book Theme” will be the permanent theme for TinyWars and will be present in the demo and the final game. Her attention to detail makes her one of the most valuable members of the art team, no one cam do backgrounds like her! Thanks for being a part of this project, it’s truly an honor to have you on our team.

 

Nicole has also done some of the animations for the enemy units in the prototype! She has many skills besides BG work!

 

Starlipop

Starlipop joined us in October 2015 as an animator for the in-game units. His animations, of course, is what brings the game to life. It turns a piece of software into an interactive experience, and I think Starlipop has done an incredible job with the animation work so far.

Keep in mind the animations featured in our prototype were not fully completed, but you will be able to experience the full animations in all of their glory in our next demo. We’re not using cell shaded, 3D applications to do our animations, Starlipop draws every single frame out and details them wonderfully!

With Stparlipop as our primary character animator, I can rest assured that love and attention is being put into every single frame of our game. We really are going above and beyond what other mobile game companies are doing in terms of 2D anime projects or even 2D tower defense games for that matter. We hope that our players will experience and appreciate the high production value we have put into our project.

 

Much of the gameplay experience will be dominated by the character animations, and we have to thank Starlipop for the work he has done on this project.

 

Hyanna Natsu

Hyanna Natsu joined the TinyWars project in December of 2015. Her role in the project was to help translate our ideas about our characters (relevant to the story and personality) into their physical appearances. The goal was to make sure that each character was unique and iconic in their own way, while still having interesting design and looking like they all belonged in the same world.

 

While Hyanna did NOT do the designs for all of our characters, she did do them for a few of our characters which have been well received by the fans.

All the girls to the right of Mary were designed by Hyanna. It’s obvious that the art style on those 4 characters doesn’t exactly match the art style of the other girls, of course, our Chief Executive Character Renderer, LaDollBlanche, will process these character designs into the final output of the game; but those 4 renders (pictured above) are Hyanna’s design renders for these characters.

 

One of the greatest things about working with Hyanna Natsu is her ability to turn over work, FAST! When it comes to designing new characters, it’s a lot of work to take in all our backstory, personality, and ideas and turn that into a representation. What Hyanna has the ability to do is to quickly create MULTIPLE different versions of the characters she’s designing and send them all to us to choose from. She works really fast, but she also delivers high quality work, there’s no compromise!

Now it does pain me to say this, but the last and final female main character has been designed by Hyannna Natsu not too long ago. This girl (pictured above) is not a tiny person, and is in fact someone who is fascinated with tiny people, so much so that she has been collecting artifacts of their existence in her book that she’s holding to her side.

 

Because this is the final female lead that needed to be designed, we might not see Hyanna involved in the project any longer. But there is no reason to be sad! These characters, that she has designed, are the main characters in the project. Little pieces of her creativity are present in those characters, and will be present throughout the game. We thank you for your work Hyanna, it’s been really great working with you.

 

P.S. One of my fellow indie game developers, YandereDev, had expressed interest in working with Hyanna for some unspecified work on his project. He asked me to reach out to her and connect them. While Hyanna might be leaving the TinyWars project, there is definitely a lot of opportunities awaiting her in the future, especially in the gaming world! Good luck Hyanna! You’re a rock star! 🙂

 

 The Art Team

While I have taken some time to specifically appreciate 4 super star members of our art team, ALL of the artists involved in the project have been amazing. The reason I took my time to write specifically about these 4 artists was because my communications with the artists in 2015 – 2016 was primarily dominated by these 4 people, they worked on projects throughout the entire year and sometimes I would be communicating with these people on a daily basis. They played a huge role in taking this project from the baby stages to a more fleshed out and materialized reality.

 

TinyWars would not be where it is today if it wasn’t for these 4 members. We hope, as development intensifies, and maybe if we raise some bigger funding for this project (kickstarter or Patreon in the future? We’re not ready for it right now, maybe after the first demo releases) I hope we will be able to bring on some more key members to our art team.

 

The art is the front facing assets that players interact with, while some of our code (my code) has been messy at times, the art really redeems a lot of those glitches. I’m working hard to refine the project behind the scenes and make everything come together through software development, but the artists provide the work that most people will really appreciate and enjoy!

 

If you’re interested in seeing everyone who was involved in this project, please visit the credits page.

 

In Part 2, we’ll talk about the Music Team!

 

 

TinyWars Demo Production Begins

TinyWars Demo Production Begins 1920 1080 andrew

Today marks the beginning of the TinyWars Demo Production. Previously we had completed our gameplay prototype, which was not 100% representative of the final product. Now we are beginnig to develop the TinyWars Demo which will be as close as possible to the final product, this includes: finished animations, enhanced controls, story cutscenes, and the implementation of the first four levels from the proposed final project.

Starting Development

So what did we accomplish on day 1? Utilizing the project files from our prototype as a base for the final build, we went through and began refining the code and fixing a lot of inefficient code in the game. It was a very tiring and frustrating day and there’s a few more days to come. So while we have not produced any new content to our game, we are refining and bringing it to that higher, commercial quality level of code that one would expect from an ambitious project such as ours. Unfortunately, I foresee these “refining” days as taking up the rest of 2016.

While the prototype might seem like a simple piece of software, there is a LOT that is happening. All of the features have been currently built out, so we aren’t looking to add anything new at this time in terms of technical features, just improving what we have already assembled as our “template” for the final project. I strongly do not wish to add new content to the project until we can refine the technical features of this game as much as we possibly can.

Fan art from Starlipop.

I spent the past few nights, drinking coffee and staying up til 3am ~ 4am improving the prototype as much as I possibly could! Most of it was spent just remembering what some of this code was even doing. Going by, feature at a time, doing my best to convert some functions into reusable scripts and just refining a few other things. I am basically just going down the list of things one at a time, starting with the most pressing issues such as the “summoning circle glitch” which still has a few holes in it. We will get through this phase! It’s for the best!

As we continue to develop and improve the project we will release updated packages for the TinyWars Prototype which was released on PC and Android. (It has not been published to GooglePlay yet, but we have added the highly requested, “double tap to summon” feature.)

Any New Content?

While we have not added any new content to the project build yet, we are still simultaneously working on gathering the assets for the final build. Most of the music for TinyWars has already been established, we will not be spending any more funds on music at this time. (I know a lot of musicians and composers have been messaging us lately since the reception for our prototype was very high on the music side of things.)

This is a WIP of our new menu design by our primary background artist, Chibionpu. This reflects the new “book theme” which I briefly discussed in previous updates. If you notice on the left page, there are various objects taped to it. The leaf with tiny footprints on it is the most obvious, the theme for TinyWars menu system is that of somebody who is obsessed with the “tiny people” and is trying their hardest to gather any scrap of evidence they can! As you unlock new characters, that page will begin to fill up with items associated with the newly unlocked character.

The key with this new demo is to get it as close to as final as possible, and this is why so much time is being dedicated even to the menu system!

*You might have seen an interesting option in this new menu design, a “Multiplayer” item which we will discuss in a future update.

New Character

Who is the “tiny people” obsessed freak who spends her days gathering clues and proof of the existence of tiny people? It is this girl!

This is how much we care about the menu system of our game. This girl, who will not appear in most of the TinyWars main story (in fact she isn’t even alive at the same time, obviously, she is guiding us through the events that happened in the tiny people’s past.) She will be useful in helping to tell the story from the perspective of a “big” person. Since the game will mainly be played by big people, we needed to make sure we had an appropriate “guide” to take us through the game and make it a little more appealing to the average audience.

People who I have pitched this idea to has received it with enthusiasm. I think it’s really going to be a great story telling mechanic.

Where Are Our Priorities?

Some people might look at this, totally revamped menu design and new character exclusively for the menu system, and think that we do not have our priorities in the right place. I hope to alleviate those concerns by reminding everyone that we already built out our gameplay prototype, and rather refined compared to some other early prototypes I’ve seen in the indie game world. The core mechanics and system of the game have been put in place. While we spend time refining them a little bit, I do think it is important to start dressing up this game in a way that is commercially viable.

Bear in mind that there is a lot of small details and things in this game that we are working very hard on, right down to the menu system having its own story! This does not mean our priorities are not in the right place, rather we hope people will see that we are passionate developers who are putting everything we can into this project and not skipping over any details!

Demo Development Timeline

There are a lot of things I can not account for, or predict accurately. TinyWars is not a one man development team, we have many talented artists working every day on this project and, depending on the type of art, it is very difficult to predict accurate completion dates. What I am able to outline for you are our general development goals.

  • Refine the Prototype
  • Implement New Menu System
  • Implement New Interface
  • Implement Overworld Map
  • Build Out Tutorial Level
  • Create First Cutscene
  • Build First Level
  • (Repeat previous two steps for the rest of the levels)

That’s it! The demo should feature 4 highly polished and very refined levels! These should be the first 4 levels from the proposed final project. I can not accurately predict any deadlines for these items at the current moment, however I am hoping that this will be completed around Q3 of 2017. I know it sounds like a long time to develop 4 levels, but there is a lot going into this project and it’s not going to be MPV status, we’re talking about pumping out the most refined demo we possibly can.

Thanks

Thanks for keeping up with the development of TinyWars. Be sure to LIKE our facebook page for smaller updates and posts!

TinyWars Prototype Publicly Available on Android and PC Download

TinyWars Prototype Publicly Available on Android and PC Download 1080 1499 andrew

For too long we’ve been teasing character artwork and music without any point of contact with an actual product, finally we are happy to announce the public release of our gameplay prototype! The prototype is available for both Windows PC and Android devices, and can be downloaded here.

Feel free to play our prototype if you want!

What’s Next?

Here’s a break down of the development timeline:

  1. Implement the new menu systems and visual theme. (As close to final as possible, what you see in the prototype is only temporary)
  2. Begin work on assets for the cutscenes and story elements. (The next demo will feature the first chapter of the game, including story and gameplay.)
  3. Develop/Program the new story cutscenes
  4. Build out the tutorial level (There will only be one tutorial level, then the player can jump directly into full featured gameplay.)
  5. Build out the first levels’ gameplay sequences.
  6. Finish animation frames for units and enemies.
  7. Compile everything together into the game and release the first official demo. (What is currently released is a prototype, what we plan to release will be an actual representative demo.)

New Visual Theme

messy-table-sketch

Imagine somebody has been collecting hints and evidence for the existence of “tiny people” and has been compiling all this evidence into a scrapbook: This is the theme of TinyWars in terms of menu design as well as how we plan to deliver the story. It is slightly complicated to explain without a video or some better visuals, but in terms of the TinyWars story, there has been a lot of events that happened before the main game that lead up to this tiny “war.”

Part of the purpose of this book is to help deliver an account for all the events that have happened. Of course, if the player has no interest in this, they don’t have to explore the journal entries. You can play through the entire game of TinyWars and experience just the story of Mary and the girls saving the kingdom without having to read any of these entries. However, those who take their time to read through the entries might experience a totally different story. And perhaps, some elements and references in the game’s cutscenes will be clearer.

Any extremely key events will be included in the game’s main cutscenes, but other story elements that I deem optional will be put into the optional reading. If the game is able to raise a larger budget, ideally I’d like to have all the journal entries animated or at least in some form of interactive cutscene, however I think most of these smaller entries will be text format. Sorry, I know it doesn’t sound like the most exciting thing in the world! I promise that I will do my best to at least give justice to at least some of the bigger key events.

Is the Story Really That Good?

The game looks so cute and happy right? How could it possibly have a deep and interesting story, it’s probably some cliche anime girl story right?

suzu-with-stump-bg-copy

While I am in no position to brag about the story which has yet to be materialized into the game, all I can say in response is that I will be very surprised if the game does not receive an “M” rating after all the story elements and visuals are put into the game.

Anything Else to Say About the Game?

I really wish I could say more about this project, without having the game released, most of what I discuss is just concept at the moment. There’s a lot of material here that I would love to discuss! We will be releasing some official music tracks to help build up some excitement for the game.

marymary-music-copy

This is just a mockup image of the music “cover.” There will be more to discuss when the soundtrack is released. I hope you will enjoy our live recorded orchestra, some beautiful violin pieces, and some great action/boss fight background music!

 

TinyWars First Tests on Android Device

TinyWars First Tests on Android Device 1399 1044 andrew

Running our game on a mobile device for the first time is very exciting!

tinywars-on-android-testing

A figuring of one of our characters, Kim, stands and supervises the mobile development testing. The game appeared to be running flawlessly at a consistent frame rate. However a few of the controls (such as pan and zoom) did not translate over to touch, so the Android version will have some special tweaking done to it before the package is uploaded to the Google Play store!

Android Release Soon

 

Once our private beta testing for the PC version is complete and we’re satisfied with the final prototype (which will still be lacking in many aspects such as: animations, graphics, visuals, etc.), we will release the gameplay prototype to the public as a PC download here on our website as well as an app on the Google playstore.

 

TinyWars is NOT Easy! Unit Explanation + Tips!

TinyWars is NOT Easy! Unit Explanation + Tips! 653 579 andrew

Some of the beta testers have noted that the prototype is much more difficult than expected. There are several reasons for this:

  1. Technically the prototype is supposed to take place as the 3rd or 4th real level of the game. It is not supposed to be a “first level” type of level, that would be boring.
  2. TinyWars in general is designed to be challenging! (more details below)

price-comparison

Unit cost difference. Melee is much cheaper!

TIP: There is a reason melee is cheaper, take advantage of it!  

Unit Explanation

Suzu (Melee Unit)

melee-swing-gif

Suzu is one of two units featured in the gameplay prototype. Her attacks are melee, which means:

  • Limited attack radius
  • slow attack speed
  • powerful attacks
  • cheap unit
  • effective against shielded units
  • weak against fast units

melee-range

It is advised that because of her limited range, she should be utilized more often than the range unit (which can cover larger areas of space.)

Unlike Kim, the fire witch unit, Suzu’s range does not increase when she is upgraded.

meleeeeee-range-fully-upgraded

The orange icon on the right side of the unit shows the unit “level.” There is no key for this, when you upgrade the unit and see the icons it should be very intuitive.

TIP: Position Suzu close to the beginning of the path so she can inflict damage to shielded units early in the the wave. You will need to utilize more melee units than range units! 

Kim (Fire Witch – Range Unit)

GIF animation 250px

Kim is a ranged unit, her attack radius is larger than Suzu’s and will increase with every upgrade.

  • Fast attack speed
  • long range
  • high price
  • ineffective against shielded units
  • weak attacks > when upgraded extremely powerful

witch-range

At first, both Kim and Suzu’s range are similar, however after upgrades, Kim’s range will soon span the entire map! (For this prototype level at least!)

witch-range-fully-upgraded

It is advisable to have Kim placed somewhere in the center of the map, so that her ranged attacks can cover the most amount of area.

TIP: During the “TinyWar” segment of the prototype, be sure to put as much resources into upgrading Kim as possible! 

TinyWars is a difficult game!

The game is not designed to be easy. (Though the first levels of the actual game will be more catered to new comers and the next demo will actually have a tutorial level.) This prototype in particular is not designed to be easy: because easy would be boring. However, we hope not to create a game that is frustrating, it should have the right amount of challenge so that it is fun and feels good when you beat it!

This is why beta testing is so important, so we can test the game on technical features, but also receive feedback on the content of the game itself!

TIP: TinyWars is an “active” game, do not think that the units you place at the beginning of the wave need to be set in stone! React, buy/sell during the wave accordingly! 

Retry Wave: The Most Important Feature

Perhaps the most important feature (and glitchy) is the retry wave feature. Because this feature exists, it allows us to create a game that is significantly more difficult than other tower defense games that don’t have this feature.

retry-wave

Games that do not utilize this feature face a dilemma: make the level challenging and if the player fails they have to start from the beginning (frustrating) or make the game easy and it becomes boring after a while!

When the harder waves come up, it is totally acceptable to “retry wave” and try a different strategy! This is what we want. Players can experience the wave the first time around without having to commit to their decisions, as long as they “retry wave” before the wave ends, then they have a chance to replay it and get it perfect!

TIP: Utilize this feature if you are not satisfied with your performance! 

Beta Giveaway

We have received positive feedback on our proposal to enter volunteers who complete the beta testing process (within 2 weeks) into a raffle for a steam gift card. I think it is the least we can do to give back to those who put their time into beta testing our game!

TinyWars Challenge!

If you can beat the gameplay prototype (without using cheats) and capture it on video all the way through with PERFECT HP (10/10), we may consider you for a special prize. Yes you may achieve this by utilizing the retry wave feature! We want video proof though, and if we get an epic reaction or web cam that would be even better but not required!

Good luck everyone!