$1.99

‘Saga Catapult’ Defense Game Now Available

957016Independent developer Silverlode Interactive released their first iPhone game to the App Store overnight. Saga Catapult is a bit of a combination of a trajectory game and a defense game. We met briefly with Silverload at WWDC and learned a little more about them.

Silverload Interactive has been around since 2005 and has been primarily focused on their persistent online real-time strategy game Saga Online for PC. Silverload explored using many of the assets they’d developed for their PC game and applying it to a mobile game. The result was Saga Catapult in which you are the last catapult operator standing in the way of a horde of enemies trying to destroy your town.

The game places you in control of a catapult which you must use to take out the enemy invaders as they run left to right across the playfield. Since the catapult shots take a little time to arc their way to their targets, you typically need to aim ahead of the enemies. There are 30 levels in all with about 15 different attackers. Each attacker has a different set of attributes to keep things interesting. Early orcs are slow moving and might take a single shot while later creatures and vehicles may take multiple shots. Flying enemies including dragons and zepplins offer an additional challenge. We’ve been told later dark elves will even try to dodge your shots.

957016_5Each kill gives you a little extra gold which you can apply to upgrades to your catapult. These upgrades include: more damage, faster fire rate, larger explosion radius, projectile control, and more lives. Most are self explanatory, but the “projectile control" upgrade allows you to tilt the iPhone left/right to affect the trajectory of your shot. This can be very helpful for fast moving targets.

We played the game a bit at WWDC and tonight after its release and found it to be pretty fun. While it’s a simple mechanic, they’ve done a good job keeping it interesting with new enemies and the use of upgrades. In particular, I suspect fans of trajectory games or castle defense games will probably enjoy this the most.


[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

App Store Link: Saga Catapult, $1.99