Mika Mobile are legends in the world of mobile gaming. After storming the top of the in the earlier days of the App Store with virtual button-fueled action games like Zombieville USA ($0.99) and OMG Pirates! ($1.99), they created Battleheart ($2.99), a beloved and genre-defining game that pioneered an ingenious line-drawing battle system that’s been copied over and over ever since. They’ve also released well-received sequels to their two most popular titles in Zombieville USA 2 ($0.99) and Battleheart Legacy ($4.99). They’re a small husband and wife studio who don’t release games often, but when they do they’re worth standing up and taking notice of. So it’s with great joy that today Mika Mobile sent over details on their next iOS game, a turn-based strategy game titled Lost Frontier.
As Mika Mobile explains on their blog, “Lost Frontier is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in a fantasy-western setting, where the Old West and the Occult mingle with a dash of improbable technology." They mention there being two major types of turn-based strategy games that they like, ones where you level up a constant set of characters and lose them permanently when they die like Final Fantasy Tactics or X-Com, and then those where you’re constantly using up and losing troops and simply making more, like Civilization and Advance Wars. For Lost Frontier they’re skewing more towards the latter type of strategy game, but peppered in with elements of the former by way of “living legends" which are special troops that you take control of yourself and level up and keep with you throughout the game. It sounds like a really cool hybrid.
Lost Frontier will launch with a “sizable" single-player campaign that’s designed to introduce you to the game’s settings, characters, mechanics, and 20 unit types. Beyond that they’ll be offering a challenge mode which “assumes you know what you’re doing and provides a place to put your skills to the test." Then there will be multiplayer maps which will allow you to configure games with a combination of AI or human opponents from 2-4 players. The multiplayer will be local to start, but if the game proves popular Mika may try to work in online multiplayer down the line. Lost Frontier is on track for a release in spring, and I really can’t wait for another new Mika Mobile game!
