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
This is awesome! Love everything about it.
The video looks as if it's running in slo-mo. It's WAYYYY faster in-game.
Does it come with that awesome classical music too?
Yep, and kick butt sound effects. :D
It's awesome in every way possible. :D
"More than 8 different pick-ups to boost your plane."
So... 9? 10?
I'm thinking there is 10 if I'm not mistaken, but they are all really different. There is also 56 planes to unlock, and 8 levels with 12 stages each. Each stage lasts 2-3 minutes. :D
So that's over 3 hours of gameplay just to finish the game, not including all the grinding required to unlock all the planes. :D
This reminds me a lot of my favorite old Intellivision game, the Biplane shooting in Triple Action. I'll be getting it and reliving the old days!
then you should also try out Biplane Duel :)
Been playing this game for a few hours now, and I'm in love. Excellent game. Between it and Soosiz, I have my two favourite iPhone games so far.
How is the control ? not usually a fan of virtual sticks (castle of magic) and how if the multiplayer ? it really does look good !
Multiplayer demo video (also showing the differences between the 3G and the 3G S; fortunately, there aren’t any, speed-wise) uploaded to youtube.com/watch?v=wbmCl8H...
(Again, sorry for forcing you to copy/paste the address above – posting even YouTube direct [that is, clickable] links results in being put in a very long and slow moderation queue.)
The usual stuff applies: only one person operates the two phones at the same time etc. That is, do NOT complain about your not seeing the full multiplayer potential. Instead, be happy with the very high technical quality of the video showing even the smallest animations and pixels in the oceans of typical low-quality, crappy ones. Please read my previous posts for more of my other remarks on my multiplayer demo videos.)
That video is awesome Menneisyys!!
Thanks :)
this game is awesome. been playing for a while now and the only concern i have is the game is too short. you could finish in maybe 5 hours. or less. but that's just levels. there's 50 planes to unlock and i only unlocked about 5 or 6. awesome game if your really bored. easily throws jet car stunts out of the water.
This is probably the one of the best games I have bought to date. Its cheap, its fun, and the controls and game play are perfect. Haven't been able to find any online players yet though. Spread the word!
It only has local multiplayer, not online one. If you do need online multiplayer in a somewhat similar title, you need to go for the vastly inferior Air Force Online by CDE as is also pointed out in my latest update ( http://forums.toucharcade.c... ) of the Multiplayer Bible.
Yah, I just realized it only has local multi-player. Oh well, I will just have to force some of my friends to buy it then. Still Awesome!
lol get a real ipod