iPhone Castle Raiders

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by binaryhelix, Aug 28, 2013.

  1. binaryhelix

    binaryhelix Well-Known Member

    Oct 15, 2011
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    Coming soon from Binary Helix:

    Castle Raiders

    An internet multiplayer game of building and raiding... More info to follow.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Jul 12, 2013
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    Whoa, you guys are still alive and kicking?
    Lost track of you after Dangerous disappeared into limbo somewhat... really looking forward to this.

    What happened with all the ambitious stuff you had planned for Dangerous?
     
  3. binaryhelix

    binaryhelix Well-Known Member

    Oct 15, 2011
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    We were in the middle of working on the FPS portion of Dangerous when we realized the game just wasn't doing well enough to keep us afloat, so we had to shift gears. The good news is before we changed projects, we were able to improve the normal flying-in-space graphics significantly, and this new iOS build is about to go live soon.

    For example, in the HD build, you'll be able to fly down to the planet's surface and watch it tessellate in real-time. There are photo-realistic ringed planets, with asteroid belts with 50,000 separate individual asteroids. And lots more cool stuff. And the best part, everybody with the HD build gets it for free. And the SD build got some graphics love, too.

    But enough about Dangerous. This new game is much more casual friendly, and will hopefully be the juice we need to finish Dangerous and a whole host of projects. I think there will be much excitement when we finally take the wraps off of Castle Raiders. :D
     
  4. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Jul 12, 2013
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    Real shame about Dangerous, too bad it didn't go well enough.
    Here's to you being right on Castle Raiders...

    Can you provide some more details already? The info in your initial post is quite sparse.
    E.g. what does "building and raiding" mean here?

    If you want to appeal to a broader audience, change the artwork for the females:
    Both are way too cliche and appear to be made to cater to the typical oversexed hormone-overdosed male teenager audience.
    While the left one looks ok, outside a Louis Royo painting you do not go adventuring in your "playtime" clothes. Give her some decent armor, really.
    The right one is worse: spelunking in a cheap neglige, or what?

    Just found a great quote, here http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/4596976/11:
    NO to oversexualised robes.
    EDIT: Or well, Bioware wasn't a fan of chainmail bikinis. The World of Warcraft style (not in latest item sets I think) has been a lot about women fighting in plate thongs and having swimsuit magic robes.

    Directly above that post there is a nice picture.

    This one is even better: http://www.elfwood.com/~yang/Female-mage-apprentice.3349724.html

    Unless you have a game rule that clothing interferes with female spellcasting :p , you *can* make cool-looking chars that aren't (half) naked.
     
  5. binaryhelix

    binaryhelix Well-Known Member

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    LOL, I thought it was rather conservative, really, compared to the likes of Guild Wars 2 and Aion.
    The left one is a thief with a beguiling persona. Thieves, mages, clerics, and sorcerers can't use heavy armor, so why not wear something comfortable? What's so horrible about showcasing the female form? It's about as realistic as dragons, wizards, and magic. In other words, it's just fantasy. And who's to say some women don't like playing a sexy avatar? (Some do. Some don't. C'est la vie.)

    See, I don't have a problem with half nakedness. I come from a film writing/directing background, and I don't care for the rise of political correctness in gaming. To me, it's artistic expression. Game makers deserve the same respect and rights that novelists, screenwriters, and directors have.

    I can tell you that it's a touch of Minecraft with a smidgen of WOW raiding for the casual mobile gamer. But while some mechanics are familiar, the whole package is not like anything on the market currently.

    Thanks for your comments and feedback. It's much appreciated.
     
  6. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Jul 12, 2013
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    *grin* I don't have a problem with nakedness either, nor with good-looking women shown with not much on despite a huge sword. Nothing is horrible about showcasing the female form, quite the contrary. I didn't mention Royo for nothing ;)

    I just think it is a bit out of place here.
    Like your female thief: what would she look like as a man? Wear the same clothes?
    For fun, swap her and the knight: case her in the heavy armor, and him in the skimpy briefs.

    I certainly didn't say that out of political correctness (which I quite despise actually), but from a "be realistic" angle. On most fantasy book covers, ridiculous male Barbarians in Fur Thong of Bulging Manhood +3 luckily are a relic of the last century, and females in Robe of Boobiness +85 DD hopefully will go the same way too at some point.

    Louis Royo is the best example: he is consistent. Either nobody wears much, like in his fantasy art. Or everybody is dressed reasonable for the job, as you can see in his SF art (say, for Shadowrun) where both sexes wear sensible clothing and armor.

    Anyways, back to the game ;) No clue about Minecraft, but the raiding stuff alone sounds like fun (not that I like WoW, always refused to play that).
     
  7. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    Almost forgot that:
    I like the way the thief looks ;)
    And the Mage on the left is very well done, too. Necromancer?

    Something is wrong with the Knight, though: his head looks somewhat like it was tacked on after the armor was drawn, cannot describe it any better; it just looks, well, off to me.
    And the Sorceress looks even stranger, also mostly because of the face.
     
  8. binaryhelix

    binaryhelix Well-Known Member

    Oct 15, 2011
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    Nullzone, I appreciate your feedback. Thanks for the pointer on Louis Royo, I like his art style. Unfortunately, not much we can do to change things now even if I wanted to since we commissioned an artist to do that image and logo at prevailing cover art prices (which ain't cheap). The one real bit of an experiment here is that while our game environment is blocky, we are going with more realistic characters. That may be more incongruous than even the cover art, but I'm tired of seeing blocky everything. And eventually, I plan to swap out the blocky environment for something more curvy and realistic.

    By the way, if anybody wants to give the game a whirl, it's live on Google Play for free:

    Castle Raiders v0.1

    We're following the MVP (minimum viable product) strategy in getting the game out the door quickly, followed by weekly iterations depending on feedback. We also have an ambitious roadmap of features planned, too. So anybody with an Android device, please give it a try and let us know what you think.

    We'll port it to iOS after getting the kinks worked out since the lead times for iOS app approvals are lengthy.
     
  9. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    Don't worry about it. If you are happy with the artwork, that is the most important thing for now.
    Don't have an Android device, so I cannot hop in to take a closer look.
    From the screenshots and what little I saw of Minecraft screens, I'd say it looks minecraft-ey enough ;)
    Wish you best of luck that things turn out well for you.
    Holler when things are ready for iOS :p
     
  10. ScotDamn

    ScotDamn Well-Known Member
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    So one year later.. Any update on this? Stumbled here from Nullzones link in the Dangerous thread. Damn I got excited thinking Dangerous was getting updated. But this looks interesting..
     

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