Fair enough. I've been tempted to create a fake Australian iTunes account myself, so I can play the latest Hearthstone on my iPad.
on second thought , since the game is so cool i'd probably pony up 99 cents for new content but i'd probably revert back to my sheltered life if it were more.
For probably unfair reasons, I keep comparing this game to Monsters on PS3. I have a tonne of fun with both. Pixeljunk ended up publishing a expansion, which was a new island, as long as the normal game for I think just slightly less than the full game, which I happily paid, and included a limitless game map, that was randomly generated. Still play it today. So, I'd be up for say.. $5 it if it offered the same amount of maps as what comes with the game I think, with the new cards... Or charge whatever the gem equivalent is? If it is a small set of levels only, maybe offer it for a buck, or 2000 gems?
I love this game and the sheer mass of content in it - so if you're going to add loads of stuff like you've mentioned, shelling out another 2$ (or 3) for this expansion should be perfectly fine for me. But I am already expecting the same rage as in Tiny Thief with all those cheapskates going like "noooo! I already paid for the product, why not a free update?" or "not more than a dollar!". Seriously, don't sell your product below its value. And a new map with several new levels, monsters, cards and stuff should take A FEW MONTHS to develop. This people are just sick and need some serious reality check treatment. Or just look up how much it costs to develop an iOS title over 3-6 months. And sorry to sound harsh here, but you are so wrong. 'Cause feeling cheated would be a FRIGGIN' UNREASONABLE response from everybody who'd state that. I mean, what the heck? They already got a COMPLETE and HIGH-QUALITY product for the initial price - there's no reason NOT to sell additional stuff which took you months to design. That would be like me asking 2k to give me all Borderlands 2 dlcs for free because I already bought the basic game. But this is iOS gaming - home of the cheapest. I am not targetting anyone here, just the general attitude is getting more disgusting each month. It's embarrassing for me as a gamer to be part of it, sometimes. Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft would laugh at these people and just continue selling their additional stuff. And you know what the most embarrassing fact is? My impression, that devs need to start asking people if it is ok to sell them additional content at a fair price. That's the stinky topping on a nice cone of avar-ice.
Thanks, everyone -- and Vovin, you made me laugh with your note and examples (better than crying, right?). I do try to see both sides of the payment stuff ... as a developer, we obviously need money to live, and sometimes people do seem to think we're driving sports cars lined with platinum. I really like to try to figure out a reasonable "cost per entertainment unit," whatever that might be ... like, how many hours of enjoyment should you get for $1, or whatever. As you say, though, no matter what we'll end up getting some people to rage at us. I remember a few years ago, we released a game called Fingerzilla that was popular. We noticed that it got put up on a pirated site and got millions of free downloads (we could tell from the difference between Apple sales and OpenFeint accounts for the game). We kind of shrugged and figured, "oh well," until the owner of the freebies site put up a, "Please pay for our site! Don't just download the games for free! It costs money to host them!" I (very unwisely) posted on their forums that perhaps it was a bit hypocritical to host pirate games, but then complain that you aren't getting paid for it ... and man, did they tear me a new one! Funny, really, in hindsight. Anyway, back on topic -- we'll probably try to release smaller batches of content, for smaller prices, so that people can do more sampling of it. If you think of the existing game as three short chapters, each with a visual theme (desert / forest / haunted), and maybe 8-10 initial levels ... then try a new "chapter" for a buck, or something, providing a new theme and new monsters and whatnot. That way people could buy (say) three new chapters for $3 or so, and roughly double what the initial game has ... or they could just buy one chapter's worth, and decide that was enough for them.
Good reply, well-chosen words; thanks. Yeah, I remember Fingerzilla very well and the pirate debacle. Was a nice lesson in "how to screw up a screw once more"... yeah, you live = you learn. About the monetization... why don't you use a system like Steam does, like in "give the people options to chose"? Like a "Seasons Pass" for all three chapters (which unlocks the episodes for free after release) for $2 and at the same time offering every new content update for $1 as soon as it is available, for the rest? This way, you'd also give the people. This would also be a fair move for the early adopters. And nobody can complain because it was his/her choice.
I would easily pay a couple bucks for an entire campaign. I know some will be offended but hey, you guys need to make money. I'd rather pay a few bucks every few months and get some updates versus no updates. My only concern is most of us will have pretty insane decks by then so I think some things need to be added so it's not so easy for us. I also think there needs to be some bosses added . the prestige levels did an ok job at making them more challenging so I know you guys can pull it off. As to the pixel junk monsters mention. That is still one of the best TD games out there IMO. Might be a good game to get some inspiration for your next venture
This is a great game, so I'd be very happy to pay for additional content, especially maps, monsters, and new cards. And a whole new tower category? Fantastic. I'd like a better deck-building interface, though. As I go back to four-star older levels I'm picking up a bunch of cards, and it gets awfully crowded and difficult to see what I'm doing with 20 mage towers. There's also a bit of a display slowdown at that point. I'm spending a bit too much time dealing with the controls at the moment, as opposed to playing the game. Also on my wishlist: a way to lock cards to prevent accidental sale or combination, and a way to save deck templates. Someone mentioned briefly highlighting newly-acquired cards when you first see them in the building screen - that would also be helpful. Edited to add: Experienced first in-battle crash in Troubled Waters, around the second bar, just after Tusker Gladiators. I was using 6 abilities fairly regularly (one of the redshirts is at 9s) and tri-cannons; I don't know if that affects anything. Twice experienced out-of-battle crashes on the Chapter 3 splash screen (Into the Deeps) Combining has twice resulted in a rarity regression - orange cards become purple. In both cases, the stats went up, marginally (like, 90% deck cost -> 85% deck cost) but the rarity went down - Phoenix Assault orange + PA green + PA green + PA white = PA purple. Something similar happened with a Lasting Blessings combination.
You may consider calling the season pass 'Support the devs' (with a pic of you dressed like hobos). I paid for the iphone version after the ipad version just to support you guys so I would be all up for it. Depending on how much of a living you guys are making out of this you may want to look at the Kingdom Rush business model. They release new characters that you pay for and x months later created a new app with different units and campaigns etc. The characters add enough of a difference to the gameplay for me to buy them (replay the campaign with each for instance) without me feeling that I am cheating (I refuse to buy any form of currency in games for eg).
edit purple is a higher rarity than orange White>green>orange>purple>gold(yellow)>black Source-Tricket For card rarity -- each card has a (hidden) rarity vaue starting at 100 and going up ... well, infinitely, although there's probably some max that they don't go beyond. Visually, we break cards down into "White border" cards (no magical boosts, and low value), and then green=>orange=>purple=>yellow for increased rarity. It's a rough categorization, since you might have one orange card that was better than another, but it should be a reasonable visual guide.
Hmm, that's strange. The in-game text (Mike's Magic Mansion -> green Help! button -> Combine Slots -> Colors) says something different: "From common to rare, the colors are, in order, WHITE, GREEN, PURPLE, ORANGE, GOLD, STARS." Was Tricket right on the boards or in the code? I think that's probably what happened - my card must have been right on the margins. I liked the stats better despite the nominal drop in rarity, anyway.
Hi, everyone! Sorry about my recent silence -- the whole family came down with annoying cold/flu this last week, and I've been away from the boards for a bit. For the text, sounds like I typed something wrong in the code. Purple *is* supposed to be the more rare one. Let me go fix that right now... yep, definitely a typo! Fixed now; thanks for catching it. And yes .. there are definitely "fringe" cases where, really, a card could be either color, and a human might color it differently than the computer (like if a barracks gets an extra 5% range, do you really care?). Meanwhile, since we haven't updated you in a while, things we're working on for the 1.5 iPad patch: - Discovered there's a bug in the underlying 2.1 Cocos2D code that crashes a bunch on certain text and particle effects. We had upgraded to C2D 2.1 for the 1.4 update, and suddenly people are getting crashes. We've gotten a workaround in place, so those crashes should go away in 1.5. - Added the achievements to Game Center. I haven't put in an in-game viewer for them yet, but you'll see them from the Game Center app, and earn points properly. I'll put in a button to view them when I get the chance. - Some new specialty buildings like gold mines, that let us create slightly different game-play in some levels. - Bridge defense cards -- can now overlap ground units and air units to have a doubly-defended bridge if you have both cards. - Kamcord (the video-recording stuff) fixed so that you can send in videos longer than 5 minutes. - Some new assorted cards like a "Farmers become Brutes" and things like that. - Some new levels to show off things like farmers running around, gold mines, and other stuff. - The usual various behind-the-scene tweaks and fixes to stop crashes and fix data values.
That update sounds good! I'm glad you guys identified and solved the crash problem. I had just started to notice it while developing an addiction to the various cannons. Noticed something else, too - Bug: Inheritance (gold border) I've combined this down to 30% deck cost (green sphere icon), 124% gold (coin stack icon). Further combinations seem to have no effect (4 tries now) and give me 60+ gems instead, while eating the lower Inheritance card(s). Is this like the Boys On Fire card, which doesn't seem to improve once the deck cost drops to 15? Also, on the back of the Inheritance card, next to the 124% gold coins icon, it says: "Additional starting gold (beyond basic card)." However, this doesn't do anything. The basic card says it gives "39% extra cash," and this part works - if I go into, say, Festival of Lights at Master level, it gives me 1504 with Inheritance equipped instead of 1080. Am I misunderstanding the intent of the text? Is the 39% in the main description a number that's already been modified by 124%? Usually this sort of thing is noted on the back, like "adjusted from 300 to 360" for range. Oh, and a question: for the "defended" type (mage, catapult, and archer towers), if the defenders die, do they respawn? I don't think they do, but I might have missed something; usually, if one of them drops, it's getting kind of frantic.
I'll take a look at Inheritance. For the maxxing out / extra gems -- what that generally means is that there are only a certain number of boosts that can apply to that card, and it's managed to hit that maximum but still has points left over, so it gives you them back as gems. It may be that Inheritance has hit its cap for 14 "points" of play-cost reduction (each granting 5% reduction), and ... possibly 6 "points" of increased value, each at 4% increase. And after that, it looks for other things to modify, but the card doesn't have a building range or building cost to effect, or trooper values to modify, or things like that, so it gives up and gives you the rest back as cash. Ways we could fix that could be (a) allowing the mods to go higher on that card, or (b) finding other modifications that would make sense for the Inheritance card (suggestions welcome!). As for the percentages ... let me go check under the hood and see what it's trying to do. My suspicion is that the card starts at about 10% or 12% base increase (so call it 112% of normal cash). You then get a 24% bonus on that: 1.12 * 1.24 => 1.39 result. So ... yeah, that. It just needs to be explained more clearly. The problem is that there isn't a "base" like there is for range or damage, so all it will be able to say is something like "(adjusted from 12% bonus to 39% bonus)". The "Defended" buildings ... ah, those poor things. They are all crazy, because I kinda hacked them in on a system that wasn't designed for it. So: * As you've discovered, on buildings where you have something like an archer on the roof of the barracks, he vanishes when you upgrade, but cannot be hurt otherwise; * When you have, say, a conscript defending a catapult, he will respawn when he is killed, but *only* while it is still that building. If you upgrade to a L2 catapult, he will stick around until he is killed, at which point no more of him will spawn. Confusing enough for you? If I ever get a chance, I'll go back and rework those systems to try to make the various guys more permanent whenever possible, or at least make it more obvious what is happening with them.
Thanks for all the clarifications That makes sense. Hmm, how about the gold mines from the coming update? I assume a mine will take up a tower position and generate gold over time. Two modifications would fit with the Inheritance card's theme, and use existing mechanics: 1) Free gold mine(s) - depending on the bonus level, the first 1 to 10 mines you place are free. 2) Cheaper gold mine(s) - as in the subcontractor-type cards. This could coexist with #1. If you ever do go back and rework the Defended guys, maybe they could upgrade along with the tower, either for a cost - attached extra button, like the Explosive Arrows from the Boys on Fire card - or automatically? But at a reduced rate, so a level 1 defended tower would get a conscript, level 2 a Brute, level 3 a soldier, and level 4 a knight. Hmm, what would you do about the Archer & Mage tower in a rework? Other stuff: Graphical weirdness: in Townbridge, the water current animation goes right over the bridge. I guess this is an engine limitation thing, because the same sort of thing happens in other places, but on this map the placement of the various graphical elements makes it glaringly obvious. Or maybe I've just farmed that one stage too often Textual inconsistency: the Tri-Cannon is called a Hydra Cannon when upgrading to it in battle. Bug: Boys On Fire / Phoenix Eyrie interaction You can train Explosive Arrows either before or after converting an outpost to the Eyrie. The Eyrie will then fire explosive arrows rather than phoenixes, but with Eyrie range and target discrimination (flying enemies only)
I'll see about making Inheritance work with gold mines -- neat idea. For the water animation stuff with bridges -- thanks! Yeah, that's really the bridge's fault: normal foreground objects (towers, trees, etc.) know they are "above" the ground ... in order to let guys walk over the bridges properly, the bridges get pushed "down" in the game scene ... and apparently right now they're fighting with the ripples, which sit just above the surface of the water. I'll go tweak those. I'll fix the cannon naming issue -- thanks. And wow, what a weird Phoenix interaction! Never thought of that one. I'll fix the data for it.
Short Interview Oh, figured I'd mention that there's a short interview with Mike and myself up at DeveloPower.org: http://developower.org/tom-ricket-man-at-arms-td/ .. in case anyone's interested in yet more background info on us and the game.
I enjoy this game quite a lot. It has an interesting change with the deck system. To decide how you want to build you deck, what cards to use in order to succeed is pretty rewarding. A small, but nice game in my eyes.
Thanks, Namorat! We'll try to keep adding stuff (cards, maps, whatever) to keep it interesting for you!
I noticed a few oddities: The faster projectile-speed-arrows card does not seem to work. It kinda figures that my only Stars card is the one that increases arrow speed by some huge number like 140%. Yet, it does not appear to DO anything when I try it with and without. (not to be confused with the two reload-speed cards). Dark Archers arrow velocity is WAY faster than anyone elses, despite the small curvature. Not sure if this is an intentional thing or not. I presume it is a built-in-compensation for them having less upgrade potential vs the Crystal Tower. HOWEVER, if you 'upgrade' them to explosive bolts their missile speed is hugely impacted (way slower). This leads to much lower damage potential due to the Overkill Factor where a dead enemy still absorbs an extra 10 arrows or so enroute. I haven't seen a whole lot of ideas for further basic building types. Are you considering doing any more additions? There are a ton of great nukes, skills, boosters, but relatively few building choices at level 4. A few ideas: Archer - Level 4 'soldier neutral' style, vs going dark or light. Adds some Area Effect/Artillery hybrid style through a 'Rain of Arrows' upgrade that periodically fires an artillery style effect. Archer2 - A Ballista style tower. Slow attack speed but much higher damage, with armor penetration and knockback upgrades. Meant for anti-huge creatures, weak vs swarms. Mage - A Tower that is more supportive in nature. Doesn't require heavy investment in Mage to be effective. Utility effects such as Snowstorm that slows in an area, Shatter that breaks enemy armor, effect that buffs allied towers, or multiplies damage vs area of enemies, etc. Barracks - Ultra-defensive option such as Temple Barracks with Paladins/Templars/Crusaders/whatever. Heavy defensive options with possibility for auras. Barracks2 - Offensive option such as Berserkers/Vikings/etc. Offensive options such as area effect Cleave attacks, short range Throwing weapon (so they can 'attack' as soon as they engage instead of having to just walk without doing anything). Artillery - A more utility-focused tower that doesn't scale so much on Cards but could be splashed into a deck for its helpfulness. Upgrades such as Caltrops to slow enemies, armor-breaker, damage-amplifier. Dragon Tower is the closest thng as its Flame effect does not rely on any +damage/AttackSpeed cards and clouds that slow movespeed.
