Lich Defense by JellyOasis (Dev's of Elf Defense): **20 Testers ** Xbox 360, $50, $10

Concluding Statement
Day #8 Post #1 (kidding!)

General Thoughts:
Firstly, a big thank you to both AppAsia and JellyOasis for the chance to beta test Lich Defense! Also, a shout-out to fellow testers for all the different thoughts and the generally high standard of participation! I really enjoyed myself this beta test and look forward to future similar tests!

Secondly, specifically to the developers, please contextualize all the comments that you have received from us testers. The 20 testers you have selected are highly-motivated and perhaps even highly-committed to playing and even finishing the game. Thus, the 20 testers are less than likely to be a direct representation of the iOS market that you may want to target. The market-at-large may not want to commit themselves to the entire game (or it could work the other way, the market-at-large maybe less critical and may accept and enjoy the game as it is). In any case, do contextualize all the comments!

Thirdly, onto the game itself, Lich Defense is an enjoyable Tower Defense game with possibly, as highlighted by others, a large amount of potential untapped. As highlighted by undeadcow, myself and other testers, the game lacks a focused direction/theme that may result the game feeling generic. My vote is to go for the funny, lighthearted style to draw all kinds of player (undeadcow's "colorful but with a tinge of dark humor" is a great proposition)! A focused theme and direction makes the game stand out, it is the extra polish that makes the game stand out in the plethora of iOS games already on the market! One thing the team can do for now is to stylize all the tips into an ancient tome/manual "Protecting the Lich" - it would be a fine touch!

Lastly, on the pricing, I guess this is the sensitive bit of any iOS game. The 0.99 spot is always good as most people would spare no thought on spending 0.99 on something. However, I would urge caution on pushing for IAPs and the pricing on IAP. People are generally adverse on IAP and too much emphasis (as much as it brings revenue) may put some people off. Going free-to-play is a good model as well but for that, I am not the best person to provide advice. Consider how other developers (e.g. the guys behind Temple Run and Tiny Tower/Pocket Planes) did it.

To help facilitiate your evaluation, I have highlighted some of my suggestions again here
(1) Bestiary - Players can understand the background story, the statistics and view the different artwork (all the hardwork!) through this bestiary! The bestiary is definitely not entirely viewable at once but rather, works on a progressive unlock scheme as players go through the game.

(2) Social Media - This aspect, when well-managed, can get your game unexpected amounts of return. Ask players to tweet/share about the game to gain extra jelly/gold or even special cosmetic unlocks. Create an account for the Lich itself and ask players to retweet in order to "charge up" the Lich! e.g. 50RTs the Lich gets "superpower" for 24hours or something like that.

(3) Community-building - This is a risky option (as highlighted by some testers) but it would be extremely rewarding if the team pulls through. Create things like Level Editors (for players to share their own challenges). Create unlock codes for players to urge others to play in other to unlock special freebies/jelly/towers. Allow for asynchronous multiplayer where the player can pit themselves against the shadow of another player!

(4) Challenge Modes - Include more modes of gameplay that requires players to do different things. One example was to limit their ability to choose towers but rather build the towers based on what was allocated to them. Install these modes with some sort of statistics tracker so the team can find out which modes are most played by players and use that information in developing your next game.

(5) Atmosphere and engaging the player - The world of Lich Defence is wonderful but there is so much to be done to engage the player. Emoticons/sounds from the Lich would really add to the experience (allowing him to lose equipment for every hit he takes). Weather effects should be part of the sound effects (e.g. the sound of the cold blowing wind in the Ice Stages or the sound of bird chirping on the Meadow stages)

(6) Tweaking the gameplay - For now, it is very important to add "Attack Priority" so players can choose to eliminate the stronger enemies first in mixed waves. Allow for more flying enemy types (and bosses). Allow for more combinations of towers (like how building towers side-by-side make defeating enemies become more effective/efficient)

I think that should be all for now! Once again, thank you for the opportunity to be part of this beta-test! Thank you all testers for making this experience memorable! Looking forward to seeing this game released on the iOS!

 

Probably just a freak memory crash not sure what device you have but iOS 5 and iPod touch 4g tend to have this issue

 

Day 7 Post 3:

Thanks AppsAsia and Jelly Oasis for another great beta testing event! This is a great game and has surpassed Elf Defense in almost everyway. The are very little translation errors this time and very few bugs which is an impressive feat.
That being said there are something that I hope you guys take some of the great suggestions here and implement them. With some minor addition to the game it will truly make it all one of the top TD games.
Keep up the great work!

 

Good job everyone, although I was not in this beta I kept up by reading this forum and you all seemed to really pull your weight and give a lot of good feedback.

I definately have to play this when it comes out now from what I saw

 

Thank you for the opportunity. I do hope the you can improve the game better. I will wait for the final release and hope there will be a BIG surprise!

 

Just wanted to say thanks AppsAsia and Jelly Oasis for the great beta testing event! Had a lot of fun testing this one and can't wait to get my hands on the final product

 

Day 7 - post 1

I guess everyone else has already said their thanks and goodbyes, but for me, there's still an hour left in the day! I've found a few more bugs/grammar issues while playing tonight, so I'm gonna post some screenshots below.


I don't really understand the description for this tower. I get that it gets powered up from killing enemies, but why would it unleash that power after it stops attacking? At least that's what I get out of it. This should definitely be re-worded to make more sense. Other than that, I like the tower!


And here's the in-game description which should be changed like above.


I forgot to mention this early, but this description isn't right either. It should be "Fires a straight laser that damages any enemies in it's path".


This one just doesn't make sense. The word usage is all off. It should be "Slows enemies by freezing them. Can occasionally freeze enemies solid."


This should say "Any towers within it's range will have increased damage."


Another instance of missing plurals. In order from top to bottom, these quests should be "Don't summon any towers until clearing the 3rd wave", "Survive for 600 seconds", "Summon more than 10 towers".


Like with the previous screenshot, this first quest's text should wrap to the next line. The first quest should be "Clear stage with more than 300 MP remaining", and the third "Don't destroy more than 6 buildings".

Alright, got those out of the way...now comes the grand finale!

 

Day 7 - post 2

Alright, I guess this is the last post for the beta. I'll try to make it a good one.

First off, I really like this little message of yours, but seriously, could you just make it pop-up once?



I mean, it's nice and all, but it gets a little old and annoying after a few times of seeing it.

Enough compaining...just kidding

I had to complain, but I guess it has to happen. I was going to try and unlock the obelisk tonight so that I could talk about it, but I could not beat level 3 in the ice world. I probably played the level 10 times and died every time right before the end. It was fairly easy up until wave 21 when the "final boss" came out. I say this because he had all the appearances of a final boss, complete with an insane amount of HP that just wouldn't go down. Also, why in the hell did he have a second, smaller body pop out when he died the first time with a new, full HP bar? He was impossibly strong and nothing I did would kill him. It also seemed that when I used my freeze skill on him, he would be invulnerable while frozen, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of using it. It could be that I needed to upgrade my towers and Lich in the upgrade menu, but I would have had to grind to do that, which I have not had to do so far. I know I'd get there eventually, but this boss seems WAY unbalanced and should definitely be nerfed (weakened). Also, as I mentioned before, he comes out on wave 21, which is one before the final wave. Either he is coming out early, or there's an even harder boss on wave 22, which would be completely unfair and just plain ridiculous.

Well, I guess that's enough for the feedback. It's been an honor being in this beta and yet again you have produced a great TD game! I hope my late entries won't disqualify me from getting the giftcard. With the time difference and having the deal with family issues and work and all, I didn't get much time during the day to play or post, so I had to do them later in the evening, which in your time is probably past midnight already. Well anyway, loved the game, it has great potential, just need to fix a few things and it'll be ready to go Thanks for letting me in this beta and keep up the good work!

 

Thanks again to AppsAsia and everyone from TA community that participated to make this beta test event a blast (no pun intended)! I look forward to any updates and the opening day at the app store.

P.S. I salute to anyone that actually finished normal mode without using any Jelly. I finally have to give up at wave 44/45 of Lava level 7 Phoenix's Nest. Incidentally I just encountered screen not responsive to touch bug that others have mentioned. The units are moving but I cannot control anything. This happened right after I was switched back from the home screen. I am happy to report no crashes during the entire testing phase on new iPad 5.1.1.

 

Looking forward to when this hits the AppStore can't wait to see what gets changed and/or added! I will definitely be buying this and supporting the devs!

 

I've seen the same tower feature in The Creeps game. There's a flashlight tower which damage increases during damaging one unit - it's charging. Very effective against bosses. I've seen that feature in some other TDs too.
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Thanks again for that beta, AppsAsia. Hope to see something outstanding in release version

 

Ths beta test was a lot of fun with interactive discussion and some great ideas. I prefer the forum post approach to the one shot questionnaire.

+1, It will be interesting to see what tweaks will be made to release version.

If I recall with the Elf Defense beta a lot of the suggestions were implemented in Lich Defense rather than with ED so who knows how they'll pop up.

All this even though Dreadnok was not included... imagine the potential if he had been...

 

undeadcow, really enjoyed hearing from you and reading your response to the feedback. it helps to clarify and develop ideas

 

Thanks, wilflare. My participation was only possible due to your discovery that reinstalling would somehow overcome that initial crash bug, so I am grateful for that. I really appreciated your ideas, like the bestiary...

[...yes! Got my two posts in today... Oh...]

 

I second that! The TA community continues to impress me! Everyone gave great feedback and participated in all areas. Great to see so many passionate beta testers out there! Keep up the good work guys. Look forward to future tests with all of you. Thanks again to AppsAsia for making this whole thing possible!

 

Looking forward to this game! Sad I missed out on testing though..

 

WoW! This news has already surprised me! You are satisfied with my effort. Thank you!

 

Got mine. Thanks so much. Congrats to all.