Block Fortress (Foursaken Media) - Minecraft + Tower Defense

[GodSon]

Originally Posted by Foursaken_Media

Actually I'm glad you brought this up... we've been going back and forth between actually having an avatar and being able to walk around freely on the ground, vs what it currently is (no avatar, more of a "godlike" view). We actually had that element in the game before, but found that there is already just so much global stuff going on (managing an economy, building turrets and walls, repairing stuff, targeting dangerous enemies, etc), that it doesn't work as great as it sounds like it would. Keep in mind in Minecraft you don't have the level of action that you will have in Block Fortress.

So again, right now its more focused on the base building aspect, rather than running around as an avatar...

But I'm curious to see what people think about that? Is having an avatar that you can do some damage with something that people would really love? - keeping in mind that with that it would naturally heavily take away from the base building TD aspect...

I can't answer this question honestly due to not actually seeing the game in action as of yet. Knowing your unique approach on all your titles it would be safer saying I trust your judgement because in all honesty, I've been more than satisfied with everything you've released on iOS.


With that out of the way...after reading the OP and painting a picture in my mind with the screens, on how I think/thought the game worked. I was thinking you as the avatar (whether in 1st or 3rd person view), farm resources to make your fortress, turrets, food for HP, materials for weapons to defend yourself while building (and setting up your turrets to keep the enemy at bay), upgrade parts, etc.

You initially start with small waves and/or random encounters of enemies while you strengthen yourself/fortress and as time goes by and you get stronger as do the enemies/boss/encounters/waves do too until you:

A) Eventually win something from defeating a boss, grand wave (relic/unique item/weapon/armor/turret/component for upgrade able turret/etc) or meeting a certain set of level goals and start a new level with stronger loot from the previous stages that carried over (as well as your fortress) and maybe open up a new area from your current map to farm and expand with new content/material that upgrades current stuff (or even plop your fortress on a new world type i.e. mountain, ice, lava, desert, etc stage) to expand and upgrade on your current stuff with newly farmed material. This would make for a longer game that would be different every stage because of different enemy types indigenous would drop unique items to further you in the game with every level type (though the building process would seem long in Minecraft terms depending on how big and complex your wanting to go).

B) Like in Bug Heroes you experience wave after wave with your unique avatar killing and collecting gold to build and upgrade your turrets until you meet your demise. This would be more action based and fun I'd say for the impatient that want to dive right into action with no need for farming outside of killing for gold at nights for upgrades while building during the day. I'd still think the building phase would be timely unless you had a 'creation mode' where you build just a tower and then import it into a game mode where you can actually set turrets. I'd still think your avatar would still play a great deal though...

I'd prefer B because you could still do what you could in A with RPG elements and upgrades, just on a much faster scale.


I'm probably looking too much into it but when I see and think Minecraft, I'm inclined to think patience (and I have no problem with that because I have the time to be as creative as possible).

[Kozio235]

Please don't forget about us with our 8 gig iPod 4g. Please send me a message when this is out and when it is out launch it with freeappdaily or something to get users and then add a price.

Can you send me a message when your other game is out too?

[Foursaken_Media]

Originally Posted by GodSon

I can't answer this question honestly due to not actually seeing the game in action as of yet. Knowing your unique approach on all your titles it would be safer saying I trust your judgement because in all honesty, I've been more than satisfied with everything you've released on iOS.


With that out of the way...

...

Some interesting ideas there In our current experiments with having an avatar, you can "jump in and out" of 1st person or the "god view", which allows for much quicker and better building.

Anyway, we'll have to bring back up the topic of how important a role (if any) an avatar should play, once we release a video and get more into the specifics of game-play. Right now the Minecraft inspiration comes from the complete freedom to build whatever you want, and the aesthetic of the terrain.

In the end, the beauty of this type of game is we have a lot of flexibility to create game modes, and mix and match different game-play elements

Originally Posted by Kozio235

Please don't forget about us with our 8 gig iPod 4g. Please send me a message when this is out and when it is out launch it with freeappdaily or something to get users and then add a price.

Can you send me a message when your other game is out too?

We always try hard to make sure our games work on older devices... there will of course come a time where we have to abandon them, but as of right now we are able to do some tricks with our current games to get them under the RAM threshold... Block Fortress will be no different

I'd definitely suggest subscribing to both this thread and the Heroes&Castles thread for the latest news... we'll be making announcements there as soon as each game is released!

[TooTinyMan]

Originally Posted by Foursaken_Media

But I'm curious to see what people think about that? Is having an avatar that you can do some damage with something that people would really love? - keeping in mind that with that it would naturally heavily take away from the base building TD aspect...

Why not add a button to toggle between the two?

[DannyTheElite]

I think a great idea would be a person who you play as who runs around killing enemies and upgrading towers.

[Fastbridge]

Oh hello. Where did this come from. So pumped for this. It's great to see you guys pumping out games at this rate.

[Linx550]

Can't wait for this to come out.

[Foursaken_Media]

Originally Posted by TooTinyMan

Why not add a button to toggle between the two?

Thats exactly what it is Right now its just a matter of balancing out how much "avatar action" we want, vs traditional tower defense.

Originally Posted by DannyTheElite

I think a great idea would be a person who you play as who runs around killing enemies and upgrading towers.

Thats pretty much what it'll be... we're just doing some experimenting figuring out how much of a role we want your avatar to have. There's already a ton of stuff to manage with building your fortifications, targeting specific enemies, and upgrading stuff, so we'll see.

Originally Posted by Fastbridge

Oh hello. Where did this come from. So pumped for this. It's great to see you guys pumping out games at this rate.

Yeah its really great being able to work on multiple projects at once... our technology and skills are finally at a point where we can work on several games at a time (whereas it took us over a year to develop the first NYZ, though in all fairness that was a side project ).

Originally Posted by Linx550

Can't wait for this to come out.

We're hoping for a release in Feb

[Oktagon Games]

Originally Posted by Foursaken_Media

Thats exactly what it is Right now its just a matter of balancing out how

The game looks very interesting so far! Curious how the toggle mode will work out.

[Linx550]

February...?