At GDC, we had the pleasure of speaking with mobile game company Gamevil. This Korean-based gaming company has been around since 2000 and has focused only on mobile platforms since 2004.
Their first iPhone game was Baseball Superstars [$4.99, Lite], a well received sports game in an under-represented category on the iPhone.
Gamevil has been continuing to offer regular updates to the game and told us that they have been following our forums very closely to address concerns and criticisms. The latest Baseball Superstars update is due on April 1st and includes enhancements in the sprite graphics and eases up on the difficulty level of the game. New features include:
- Overall graphic upgrade
- Day/Night time backgrounds (depending on your local time)
- G-Points needed to unlock special characters have been significantly reduced.
- Coca Cola logo has been inserted in the background. (Coca Cola – Gamevil alliance)
Zenonia
Gamevil also revealed that they are bringing their Zenonia aciton-RPG to the iPhone. Zenonia is a successful existing Korean mobile title that has already sold over 600,000 copies. The game appears to be a very deep RPG with many nice details including day/night changes, slower movement when carrying many items, as well as the usual leveling up system, and skill upgrades.
Some features listed by the developer include:
Zenonia will offer over 40 hours of gameplay. We managed to get an early copy of the game which is still in development. The game is mostly complete, however, with the exception of language-localization.
Controls use a relatively standard virtual D-Pad for movement and an attack/action button. Additional attacks and skills can be mapped to other virtual buttons along the bottom of the screen.
We recorded this gameplay video showing basic attacking, leveling up and skills upgrades:
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
Zenonia will likely be released in the next couple of months.
This looks awesome. Finally a turn based strategy game with some decent graphics. I've been playing "Slay" for the last couple of days and am only able to manage beating the maps in "Easy" mode - tried the first map in "Hard" about 50 times, no chance, meaning the balance is horrible and the graphics and sounds are shoddy.
What I don't like about this one here is the units. I mean come on why animals? What happened to the good old Tanks/Army/War machinery? I'm not a five year old.
The type of "creature" vs army unit varies depending on what race you choose. there are 3.
http://toucharcade.com/wp-c...
I added more screenshots.
Great! Now I'm a happy camper! :-D
That makes two of us
Wow, this game looks nice. I hope that more and more "casual online multiplayer" game models emerge. It just fits the nature of the iPhone. I wonder though what happens to realtime multiplayer games? Is it that hard to implement. Other platforms have already succeeded in this field. Granted one would have to take care of differences in the connection type (edge, umts, wlan(dsl, cable)).
It reminds me more of "Master of Monsters" than "Advance Wars"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
It actually reminded me of military madness on the old TG-16
http://classicgaming.gamesp...
@Nicolinux: "It just fits the nature of the iPhone"
Uniwar dosen't seem casual at all...
As Warfare, or Sim city or etc etc, ...
Iphone's game are casual or not, but Iphone itself isn't casual or not...
I like the idea of asynchronous multiplayer. Not everyone has the time finish a full game, especially on an iPhone. So this makes it easier.
wow FINALLY!!! a decent turn-based strategy game for the iPhone. I'll be checking this one out first thing.
Doesn't seem like there would be that much difficulty in having a "live" multiplayer turn based game. The movements could be sent as simple lines of text in the background to the other player's game.
Maybe the difficulty has something to do with the carrier's network? Does it become a "phone call" when you need quick transmission&response between 2 phones? Otherwise is the priority of the transmission low?
Anyway this game looks like a winner in my book. Too few turn based strategy games!
the unholy war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
this game looks pretty cool.
I wish someone would bring X-com, or something similar to the iphone
"Advance Wars"? Pfft... Battle Isle ftw!
No - History Line FTW!
Best Blue Byte Hexagon game ever. I don't know why they never did a sequel that game just rocked...
I would love to see a History Line sequel with the game mechanics of BI2, i.e. sequential turns instead of simultaneous moving/attacking.
FIRE EMBLEM FTW AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH haha no really the design is perfect for FE it must be done!!!
Actually, I think it plays more like the open-source game Battle of Wesnoth. A turn-based strategy game on a hex, with similar artwork.
I am having a heart attack I want this game so bad.
Looks AWESOME!!! Finally a good looking TBG. I love how they have implemented multi-player. Can't wait.
Shame there is no overworld or battle animations on this game.
There are battle animations in this game in fact. And some of them are pretty cool.
lol........he said "coming out with a big unit".......hehe
This game is very promising! I am sure it will be a success!
The graphics looks very good, and i like very much the idea of multiplayer mode.
I hope they release it very soon!
Any news? I am waiting for it but I cannot find any information about it!
It is in the process of submitting to the App Store this week! I'd check back in week or two. Also: http://www.pocketgamer.co.u...
A decent Shining Force I+II clone would make me happier than a monkey on heroin but i guess hell will freeze over before a decent Strategic J-RPG pops up on the Iphone. Fire emblem is good but a number of in my opinion stupid design flaws makes it less attractive (breaking weapons and the rock-paper-scissors weapon system plus the fact that most fighters have no role in the story because they can die at any time are my main concerns) FFT for the PSX are good, the GBA versions are terrible in comparison. Haven´t really tried the Disgaea series but it seems good but due to lack of experience i rely cant say so i´m sticking to the Shining Force series superiority theory. //F
Pardon the quality of my somewhat inconsistent spelling- English is not my native language (I typed "rely" when I ment "really" for example). This is mostly not due to ignorance but stress and not reading through what I have typed before posting. Pleace forgive my hastiness in this matter. /peace-F
I would give my left test-icicle for a remake of "X-Com", "Rebelstar: Tactical Command" or "Jagged Alliance". I love the squad-based, tactical strategy titles best. I always had a problem w/ "J-Style" strat titles like "Final Fantasy Tactics" for one simple reason.... make that two: A) no Line-of-sight mechanics, and B) no COVER system! This one pisses me off, most of all! If I have a unit standing behind a WALL, why the hell should a ranged unit be able to fire straight into the air, and have his projectile hit me, unfailingly, every single time!?
"Rebelstar" is one of the unsung classics of the GBA system. I loved it. It's weldwd into my GBA Micro.
http://www.1up.com/do/gameO...
I couldn't agree more. Rebelstar kicked ass. I have never heard of Jagged Alliance. Was it a pc/mac title, or was it for a particular gaming system.
Besides the use of cover, and destructable environments, my favorite thing about X-Com was the level of customization you could do with your units, and bases. If they could bring that to the iphone I would be ecstatic.
can't wait for this being released. does anyone know a good pc/mac-game like this?
found weewar.com
Still under apple's approval system. Hope to launch soon but could take awhile. Sign up to get notified: http://uniwar.com/
I still have my fingers crossed for tonight. If not, next week will be a good one.
i believe that uniwar will be available to be played also on a web browser, so we will not be only limited to play on a cell phone... LOOKS GOOD!
This game is so fun and the tactics change based on the race combo (like in StarCraft). Nice mix of WeeWar.com and StarCraft for the iPhone.
Very very fun and can be played in small doses.