Late night. Fixes to the hidden Master difficulty mode (you heard it here first), making sure that the card stats are explained in the gui properly and some funky fenanglery with Apple store text. We're tired but proud! Can't wait to click that "submit" button. Robert, our submissions expert, is waiting here very patiently. At least we got to watch a Canucks victory over dinner
Bah! Missing a time-out for accessing the store in bad network conditions. Put that in. We now have our submission build! Submission to Apple for a Canadian release is complete. Now we just need to show you more about the game. The trailer we're working on to do that has been expanded, so look forward to that soon. Oliver might chime in with a date, right Olly?
I'm sorry if I missed it, but: are you planning on making money through IAP? The app itself is free, no?
Yes, that is correct. Originally, we had a virtual currency in the game where levels were gated by paying an entry fee. You could earn that currency for free in Single Duel mode in order to progress in the campaign or buy it in the store. When we tested it though, people found it annoying and just wanted to buy the game outright. We didn't want to do that entirely though either because we had promised our fans something free to play. The result is that we now have the equivalent of a demo-to-unlock for the campaign. You can play that demo with all mage classes to get a feel for their different play styles. Better than that though, multiplayer is entirely free to play. If you buy the campaign through IAP, you can get more cards to use in multiplayer, but we have given away a ton of cards for free up front. The other challenge was the price for IAP. Testing showed that people would pay a lot for the game but that some people wouldn't pay more than 99 cents for any particular game. The solution was to offer the whole campaign for a single mage for 99 cents or for all four mages for $2.99. We also offer the chance to unlock all rewards up front for a premium price of $9.99, for people who are impatient and can't be bothered playing through the campaign to collect the rewards. People who pay the premium save time only though - they don't buy an advantage to make the game unfair in any way. The good news is that you can do well in multiplayer with the base card set available (which is most of the cards in the game). Even better is that the mage classes are very well balanced - you have Richard Garfield of Magic: The Gathering to thank, in part for that , which means that for 99 cents, you can be as good as anyone. That' an overly detailed answer to your question I suppose!
Yes I can reveal some info but in the spirit of keeping the interest I can't ghive a date right now Firstly though, well done to the guys for getting this out to fellow Canadians! As for the first teaser trailer I have literally just seen the final draft and I think it should turn some heads Jim, our super talented video producer has been toiling over this for a few days now, but I don't want to reval anything here as it will spoil the show and all his hard work if I do, but we will add it to the home page of http://www.kardcombat.com very soon, once we are ready to tell the world...
...And now for the BIG news as alluded to by Olly. Screw the trailer, the game is now LIVE in Canada. We're releasing there/here first to make sure the game will be perfect for a worldwide release, and because Canadians are so polite. Seriously though, if you live in Canada PLEASE GIVE US FEEDBACK ON THIS GAME! You can download and play it for free, including unlimited free multiplayer, and we've put our hearts and souls into it. The trailer is still getting prepped for the worldwide release. When that is, exactly, will depend upon the feedback we receive on the game over the next week.
There's a feedback button in the game if you press the question mark on the main menu, which will email me directly, and also this forum you can use for comments on the game: http://www.hotheadgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=494 Don't be shy!
Here's the link to the game for those in the Great White North: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/kard-combat/id421061883?mt=8
Hi, I downloaded this yesterday and played some of the single player which was fun. I tried starting a multiplayer game with a random opponent but no one was around so i left the game. I thought it would pop up a notification when someone joined but that doesn't appear to be the case. I loaded the game up this morning and there is now a game showing in my moves but if i cick on it nothing happens? Does my opponent have to be online for me to make my move?
Any updates on when this may hit the US App Store? LOVE Spectromancer and have for years. Can't wait to try this out! Q
hi there. any news on getting this onto ipads? your publisher doesn't *seem* have a very good track record for supporting developers onto the ipad, but i hope that doesn't apply to you
Hey gonjammin, we're looking into why nothing happens when you click on the match. You opponent doesn't have to be online at the time for you to play. Apart from that particular issue, a couple of other things should change soon that should help: 1) More people will be playing the game. This will make it easier to find a match quickly. 2) We're going to expand the number of matches that you can have running simultaneously. This will mean that you can keep playing without having to cancel out of matches that are taking some time. This happens more often in the random matches, as your friends are usually more engaged (at least, from my experience so far). I'll keep updating this thread with more developments. We're getting a reasonable amount of feedback and have a whole bunch of improvements in development already. Hamish
Here are a couple of screenshots too, for those who can't see KC in their store yet. Also, don't forget that if you live in Canda, you can play the game for free right now, from here.
It's a full list of work to try and squeeze into the next two weeks. Here's hoping we can do it Top items include allowing more than four simultaneous multiplayer games at a time, revisiting our IAP flow so that it is easier to understand, better integrating texting in multiplayer and making health and mana upgrades carry over from the Tower campaign into Single Duel and Multiplayer modes...
Hi everybody, I'm Scott, programmer on Kard Combat, and a longtime forum addict in general. I'm new to Hothead Games and iphone development, but I've been making console games since 1998. I played a lot of MTG when I was younger, so I am very excited to be working on this project. Its also great to be on an iphone team in general as I am allowed to do things like post on forums as a dev team member. I'm not caught up on this thread yet, but I will do so over the next day or so - in between preparing this game for world wide release and watching the Stanley Cup final.
Telling the world about Kard Combat Busy couple of days from the Hothead marketing department. A quick trip from Vancouver to LA for some E3 action and now typing this on my iPhone from WWDC in SF. Had a meeting with Open Feint today as our multiplayer mode uses their tech and ramping up the plans for a preview exclusive (coming soon) and our official announcements, trailer and other cool competitions. We will post the trailer in the forums once things kick off it's back to Hamish & Scott for now!
Hi Mark, I created a Canadian iTunes account in about 2 minutes without having to give any credit card info and was able to download the game to try it out. If you love Spectromancer, like I do, you are REALLY going to LOVE KC. The game plays and looks awesome on my iPad. Even if I find a way to buy the IAP's in the Canadian store I will instantly buy it again in the US store when released here.
I got some feedback today that the game is too easy. While multiplayer definitely holds its own, I've been worried about this for a while. The reality is that Master difficulty can be fantastic, but the problem is that it's only unlocked after a full playthrough and right now that means: 1. People aren't aware of it; 2. People can't play it right away; and 3. By the time they do play it, they may have all the cards and upgrades from the previous playthrough, so it's easier than it should be. I'm thinking it should be available from the get-go. Just played through Master with Holy on a first playthrough and experienced some of the greatest videogame battles of all time - especially the last fight. It took me about 7 attempts to win. After finishing though, I haven't "Mastered" that mage (a little surprise we have in the game). It must be because one of the battles was fought on less than Master difficulty but there is no way to tell which one. I think we need to slap a big "M" on the Tower battles that have been completed on Master so it's totally clear. That's enough ranting and inside information for now I suppose... Hamish
