This week we had John Kooistra on our podcast during which he revealed for the first time what he had been working on for the past 6-7 months.
Kooistra is the developer behind some of our early App Store favorites Blue Defense! and the follow-up title Blue Attack!. Both games were set in a new universe of Red and Blue forces who were set on destroying each other. Kooistra’s latest project extends this universe and provides an actual back story (the “why") behind the aggression of the two forces in a real time strategy (RTS) game called Red Conquest.
Like most real time strategy games, your goal is to build up your army and coordinate your units to maximize enemy damage while minimizing your own. Kooistra explains that due to the space setting, unit micromanagement is very important as there are no physical obstacles for your enemies aside from your own units. In order to adequately defend your position, you will need to make a blockage with your own frontline battle units. As ships are destroyed, they explode into chunks that can be collected by your harvesters, so you’ll want to bring one of those along with your attack squadrons. Multitouch is also said to play a big role in managing your units via a “squad multimove" screen where you can move as many units as you have fingers.
In [some of the screenshots], you can see little circles attached to squads by lines, those are multimove handles. Basically, on this screen, you can move individual units with as many fingers as you’re comfortable with. I like to use both thumbs, myself, and you get pretty good control over a fair number of units this way. It’s very good for micromanagement.
Meanwhile this screenshot gives you a tactical map when you zoom out with squads represented by icons.
We haven’t been able to spend any time with the game itself which is hoped to be submitted in the next few weeks, but Kooistra supplied us with these early screenshots which share the familiar art style of his earlier games.
If you’ve never heard of Blue Defense! or Blue Attack! before, check out our early reviews of the titles (Blue Defense! Review, Blue Attack! Review).
App Store Link: Blue Defense!, $1.99, Blue Attack!, $1.99
