Upcoming Games

GDC 2012: Upcoming ‘Pixel Wars’ Offers Same Device Multiplayer Tower Defense on the iPad

Pixile Studios is a new two-man development team working on their first iOS title called Pixel Wars. The gist behind Pixel Wars is that it offers a competitive tower defense game for two players on one iPad. Each player gets one side of the screen and can place various towers to defend against the other team’s forces breaking through your gate. While you’re setting up your defenses, you’re also choosing offensive units to send over to your opponent’s side, trying to break through their array of towers and into their gate.

Each player has 20 hearts as their life supply, and each creep who makes it through your gate will take off a single heart. The first one to lose all of their hearts loses the game. It’s a really simple concept actually, and I’m surprised nobody has thought to do it on the iPad before. I’m a big fan of same-device multiplayer on the iPad, and Pixel Wars is a fun and strategic way to compete against a friend face-to-face.

There are 3 different teams in Pixel Wars – a technology team, a nature team, and a mutant team – and each will have their own array of defensive tower choices and offensive units. There will be 3 maps to play at launch, with more planned for updates down the line. There’s also the possibility of more teams, tower types, and units that could materialize post-launch to further flesh out the experience.

Just because Pixel Wars is a same-device multiplayer game doesn’t mean you can’t play alone, though. There will be a single player campaign where you face off against an AI opponent, and there will also be a challenge mode that tasks you with winning against the AI under special circumstances. Pixel Wars was a ton of fun while I had a chance to play it, and it’s a clever take on tower defense with a competitive edge. Pricing is still up in the air, but if all goes according to plan Pixel Wars should be hitting the App Store sometime next month.