Legends of Callasia Boomzap Genres: Games Strategy Board Free Supported Devices: iPad2Wifi iPad23G iPadThirdGen iPadThirdGen4G iPadFourthGen iPadFourthGen4G iPadMini iPadMini4G Minimum iOS Version: iOS 6.1 Download Size: 331MB Legends of Callasia Boomzap The Great Callasian War rages across the lands. Choose a faction and awaken the legendary heroes to lead your armies and… Free Buy Now Watch Media DetailsThe Great Callasian War rages across the lands. Choose a faction and awaken the legendary heroes to lead your armies and destroy enemy forces! Build cities, conquer kingdoms, and form or break alliances on tabletop-style maps with bonus cards that can turn the tide of battle. Follow the story of the factions in single-player campaign missions, or test friendships in online multiplayer with an original simultaneous turn-based system that adds deep strategic elements in predicting other players’ moves. Fight your way to the top of the leaderboard, and dominate the fantasy world of Callasia! Note: The free demo includes the tutorial, starter campaigns and heroes for each faction, and three maps for skirmish and multiplayer. The full version can be unlocked through a one-time purchase from within the game. FEATURES: - Three Factions to choose from: Hundred Kingdoms, Faeborne, and Revenant - Over 25 Heroes with different classes, traits, and bonus cards - 30 Single-Player Campaign Levels worth almost 40 hours of gameplay - More than 35 tabletop-style Skirmish/Multiplayer maps playable up to 8 players - Pay once and play WEBSITE: http://legends.boomzap.com SOCIAL NETWORK: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/boomzaplegends Twitter: @boomzapcallasia Discord: https://discord.gg/010B25KKhFcVlmj0R Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/legendsofcallasia TERMS OF SERVICE: http://www.boomzap.com/terms PRIVACY POLICY: http://www.boomzap.com/privacy Information Seller:Boomzap Genre:Board, Strategy Release:Sep 07, 2016 Updated:Jun 12, 2017 Version:1.0.26 Size:385.9 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating: (9) Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Lickzy Well-Known Member Patreon Silver Oct 28, 2013 921 1 18 Director of Sales Winnipeg, MB, Canada #2 Lickzy, Sep 10, 2016 Impressions Let's not all go and post impressions all at once... Downloading now, how can't I for the free price tag? I hope I absolutely love this game as I can't say how big a fan I am of the genre and moreso the pricing model! Free to try out and then a premium price for a premium game. Can't wait to dive in and I wish the Dev success. Tinsel Well-Known Member Dec 8, 2008 508 5 18 #3 Tinsel, Sep 10, 2016 Last edited: Sep 10, 2016 Wow, this game is honestly pretty amazing. I was not expecting much because the screenshots did not load for this post (for a while), and the description is fairly vague in how the game actually plays. The screenshots may make the game look like RISK, but this is actually closer to a Warlords, King's Bounty, or HOMM style game. There is actually a great deal of complexity here, and the one major difference between this one and KB/HOMM are the lack of tactical battles. That suits me just fine as I would really enjoy those battles the first few times in those games, then I would just auto (or have a massive advantage) just to get through those tactical battles as quickly as possible so I could get back to the main game. Here, the combat is automatic (and can be sped up or skipped entirely). Your heroes are the cornerstones of your armies, and they are what you will be maneuvering around the map. You have options like conquering territories, constructing buildings on territories (so far mainly gold and population centers, or towers that you can hire troops from), razing enemy territories, or putting your army into a garrisoned position. There is more happening each turn than in a typical HOMM game though, as you have seasons that rotate. The seasons raise and lower your gold income, population limits, as well as dictate how many cards you draw each turn. Don't get too hung up on the cards if you don't like card games though. This aspect is similar to RISK. The cards you draw are random and give you small benefits in combat, construction, or occupation. Think of them as small little gambits you can use when it suits you best. So far, the campaign has been pretty interesting, with a variety of goals to shoot for and optional objectives as well (though, my usual strategy of killing and conquering all is mostly working up to this point). Each faction has a handful of different units, and I think there is a way to even get opposing faction units to join you as well (I've seen the computer do it, but haven't done it myself). There is a minimal diplomacy section (think basic MOO2 or the simpler CIV games). Also, I haven't encountered anything on the world maps yet that would be similar to the odd quests or encounters you could have in the newer HOMM or newer KB games. Still, this is a really great game. The tutorial was ok, but a quick tip is that pressing on almost any UI element will give you a nice description of what it is and how to use it. Edit: Completely forgot about multiplayer which I haven't tried yet. Honestly I generally like the solo campaign in these types of games, but it could be good. Dimaya Well-Known Member Nov 21, 2012 85 0 0 #4 Dimaya, Sep 10, 2016 I downloaded this and completed the tutorial, and it seems to be right up my alley, especially as I love the boardgame Risk. It's very simple, although I'm not sure how damage works in battles. Wish I could maybe slow it down a bit, and some of the text in-game can't be read because it disappears too quickly. Everything else is a lot of fun and very well made, and I can't wait to try out some of the Campaign, as I can see myself paying to unlock this one. nkarafo Well-Known Member Mar 2, 2011 860 9 18 #5 nkarafo, Sep 10, 2016 I played for a while and it's pretty good! It's disturbing the first main screen with the pentagon and the undead. I don't know for others but I would NOT like to see every time the pentagon when starting the game. Sure it has magic, fantasy, etc but not all the people like satanic symbols, especially in front of your face. Besides this, it's like RISK and other conquest games. I like the fact that it has online (not tested) in real time and not wait and wait (pass and play). I like the graphics, presentation, music (fits well) and gameplay overall. It has 30 single player campaign with almost 40 hours of gameplay !! Fantastic! And more important you don't need an internet connection all the time !! I wish other games will follow this path. gmattergames Well-Known Member Mar 1, 2013 607 41 28 #6 gmattergames, Sep 11, 2016 Played on Steam, always thought it would be great on mobile. It's a great blend of several games, the obvious being risk, but much deeper. Expect this to appeal to most casual boardgame lovers, especially anyone who's always wanted a high-fantasy themed risk. Dispite its appeal, the $25 price to unlock is excessive and would expect it to be prohibitive for most, likely resulting in boomzap missing out on this games fiscal potential. I'd recommend individual IAP's to unlock each faction, as well as a full unlock currently available. The one part of the game least satisfying, is combat. It automatic clash of each sides armies, phased by unit attack type. Combat, while flashy, is chaotic and sometimes difficult to follow. Rawk GWJ Well-Known Member Feb 9, 2014 335 0 16 #7 Rawk GWJ, Sep 12, 2016 I LOVE Satanic imagery!! Color me sold. I'll pay the $25 to unlock everything!!! I try not to let imaginary, mythological characters get me down. nkarafo Well-Known Member Mar 2, 2011 860 9 18 #8 nkarafo, Sep 12, 2016 Do we know any pattern for combat? How we will know before battle what units are better for the combat? E.g. magic defeats ground units or not? Besides the eye icon that lets you know the possible result, any table stats would be also extremely helpful so that you can have specific type of armies against any enemy. Ayjona Well-Known Member Sep 8, 2009 3,295 21 38 Freelance journalist and writer, amateur musician Stockholm, Sweden #9 Ayjona, Sep 12, 2016 Last edited: Sep 12, 2016 This is good. Really good. A very accessible and quite casual boardgame-4X-light, but with quite a few unique touches, and not without depth and width of strategy. With the addition of asynchronous online play*, it could become a mobile multiplayer classic. Legends of Callasia is the perhaps ideal candidate for async. It would be a Starbase Orion-like dream to always have active matches and take turns in Callasia throughout my days, and not just limit the fun to short, dedicated sessions. While there are a good number of async games of high quality for iOS, we are still short-changed in the 4X/empire-building space. I also hope iPhone support is added soon. The interface would make the transition to the smaller screen beatifully, and is nowhere near as complex or cumbersome as quite a few board games which already have a successful presence on iPhone (not to mention the complex 4X and TBS titles available for iOS). The appreciation of the genre is not limited to tablets and desktop machines (the Days of Wonder argument). (The opposite. Turn-based games are perhaps the ideal iPhone genre, since they never suffer from lack of physical controls, and the turn-based nature means lack of screen real estate will not make the action harder to react to. And the smartphone, in return, is the ideal device for digital multiplayer board-war-strategy-gaming, always in our pockets, enabling us to take turns at any given moment and thus keep games alive throughout the day. As opposed to only during dedicated gaming sessions. No reason to settle for either when we carry all this gaming potential on our persons.) * Contrary to bizarre popular belief, asynchronous play is not the anthi-thesis of realtime. It is an addition. Properly implemented (in the manner of Carcassonne and Playdek titles), async mechanics only pick up when one player leaves a realtime game (and thus also doubles as autosave/connection loss protection). And there is no reason the addition of async should take away the option to play realtime only games, as one poster in this thread seems to worry. odin Member Dec 16, 2010 12 0 0 #10 odin, Sep 12, 2016 Hi, I'm Allan, one of the devs for Legends of Callasia. First I wanted to thank all of you for the amazing feedback; it's always a pleasure to hear from players, and you've got no idea how good it is to hear people enjoying the game, especially right now So far Callasia has been a very different development experience for us. We've tried a bunch of things; some worked really well, and we'll do more of those. Some did not, and we'll.. not repeat that. I thought I'd talk about a few of them. So; first, price. There's a good, a bad and an ugly part of that, and I'll try to tackle them in reverse order. First the ugly; the price is indeed $14.99, not $24.99; the reason you're getting the wrong price is also the reason you wouldn't be able to purchase the title even if you didn't die from nosebleed. When we submitted the App to Apple we didn't include the IAP in the package; we spotted that more or less immediately, resubmitted, and have been sitting (in a corner, rocking back and forth) waiting for Apple to finish their review and post the fixed version live since. 2 days never felt so long. Let's move to the bad; we know even 14.99 is high for a mobile game. It certainly moves it out of impulse buy territory. A lot of us game on multiple platforms (for myself I game on iPhone6, a Samsung Note 4, an iPad3, a dual-booted Macbook Pro and a PS4). One thing we hate is to have to re-purchase the same game for each new platform, especially in the case of something like Callasia, where you can play cross-platform, and there's a persistent account tracking progress. Which brings me to the Good part; we had the idea of make the game 'buy once, play anywhere'; if you purchase the game on one platform, it's automatically unlocked (through the persistent account) on all other platforms. The word "heartstone" was mentioned periodically, and we went on record about this at gaming conventions and talking to magazines Our first issue with this was when we launched on Steam. We started out on Early Access as a Free game with a single-unlock IAP. To a lot of Steam users this smelled like F2P, and some early reviews suspected us of planning to go full Zynga on them. After some chatting with Steam the game is now in the Premium side of the store, with a Free demo. If you unlock the game on iOS, you download the Demo version on Steam, which plays identical to the Full game if your account is unlocked. Which delivers the functionality we wanted, but it's not intuitive to the player. The other issue happens now; the fact that you get the same functionality whether you buy the game on Steam or on iOS means we really need to price it the same. So we're either left pricing the Steam version at something like 4.99, or putting the iOS version at Steam price. We ended up compromising, reducing the Steam price from 24.99 to 14.99, and risking sticker-shock on iOS/Android. It's a pretty good example of just how badly lost you can get even with the best of intentions, and not something we'll ever do again. So; what DID work? It's the first time we've tackled genuine multiplayer as a company, and I think it worked out really well. The server infrastructure is solid, the cross-platform multiplayer works great, and we've got a really cool community. Speaking of the community ,that's the other thing that's gone really well. Like most game companies we've traditionally not engaged that much with our users. At best we talked TO them, but not WITH them. Callasia represented an attempt to complete change that. We stream the development of the game every day, we've got a public discord channel where the devs hang out all day while working, and are happy to get into discussions of everything from the gender of dwarfs to the balancing of maps and cards. We've committed to a weekly release cadence of bug-fixes, new content and updates (which we've kept up now since April), and we've got an amazing group of people that have sent us everything from explicit Dwarf Fanfics to fanart, from bug-reports to helping with lore. We've also tried to cultivate that as we could; we're sponsoring a fan art contest , there's also a big ranked match competition that kicked off 2 days ago. We spend a lot of time talking to, and learning from, the live stream community. I think all of those things have been great, and we hope to continue to build on that. We hope you enjoy the game; I usually hang out in the TA forums, so feel free to AMA. Allan Ayjona Well-Known Member Sep 8, 2009 3,295 21 38 Freelance journalist and writer, amateur musician Stockholm, Sweden #11 Ayjona, Sep 12, 2016 Hey, Allan! Awesome to see you turn up in the TA forums. Very few things endear a game and its developers to us TAers more than an active conversation with the player base. The price is anything but ugly. I'd gladly have payed the full 25 dollars. 15 is a steal. But yes, this might not be a common sentiment. As for your AMA offering, take a look at my post just above yours when you've the time. Can we expect either of these essential functionalities any time soon? Tarquelne Well-Known Member Aug 14, 2015 67 0 0 #12 Tarquelne, Sep 12, 2016 I can quite vividly imagine that. I like your thinking on the price. I'm a huge fan of free demos. I'd rather pay more for a game I know I like than cross my fingers on $5. At $25 I'd be very leery of buying - I'd want a lot of replayability, and - generous as the demo is - it isn't enough to make me secure about that. At $15, though, I'm definitely in. Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #13 Nullzone, Sep 12, 2016 Last edited: Sep 12, 2016 Hello Allan, great to see you here, very much appreciated. Thanks for the IAP explanation, saves me the trouble of writing a bugreport Will wait for the update to arrive. And for the record: I was perfectly fine with the 25$ pricepoint. Callasia definitely looks like it's worth it, and made a great impression with the 3 free stages. Gameplay/balance - First Faefolk stage "Straits of Dranacor": In the first Faefolk stage, you have the optional objective to help the Orcs/Kingdoms to wipe the other off the map. I only tried Orcs, and in 5 or 6 attempts I could not get the objective, and got very much curbstomped by the Revenant enemy as I had to spread my forces over 2+ fronts. I gave up on it, and restarted the stage. This time, I rushed the Undead Capital, steamrolled the few troops they had there and won in under 10 turns. Either I just got very (un)lucky, or the balance is a tad out of whack. And a question: When you send tribute to an AI ally, do they make use of that Gold? In the above scenario (allied with the Orcs on Fae stage 1), I sent them a few thousand Gold I had lying around to strengthen their warchest, but never saw them bringing out the armies they could buy with that money. Last, I am not sure if requiring an account with you to purchase the full game on iOS is a good design decision. I'd imagine that it puts a lot of people off for various reasons (too much extra effort, "*another* account? Nope, thanks, pass.", etc.). My first reaction was on the "too much effort" side, would surprise me if I'm alone with that. For people like me who don't want/need the sync with Steam and whatnot, could you offer a purchase option without account if it's not too much work to implement? auver Active Member Mar 18, 2013 37 2 8 #14 auver, Sep 12, 2016 does IAP purchase working now? It seems not works to me Everytime I cliked the purchase button, nothing happens. Dragan Well-Known Member Aug 21, 2014 365 7 18 Belgium #15 Dragan, Sep 12, 2016 If the price is indeed 14,99$ you have me as a customer because from playing only the tutorial I feel the game is worth it and I hate free to play. Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #16 Nullzone, Sep 12, 2016 Not yet, I just tried too ~30 minutes ago. Update is not available yet, Netherlands here. @odin: your comment sounds as if Apple already approved the update and you put it live? Or are you waiting for Apple approval still? monikazapper Active Member Jul 7, 2014 25 0 0 Philippines http://www.boomzap.com #17 monikazapper, Sep 12, 2016 Hi guys! Monika here, also from the Callasia dev team. I'm also Monika in-game if you'd like to play some multiplayer matches some time. As Allan said, we're all active on both Discord and Twitch. It would be great if you could drop by and also meet some of the other Callasia players! To clarify, the update has been submitted to Apple, and we're still waiting for review. Hopefully we get approval soon. Hi Nullzone! I shared your feedback on the first Faeborne campaign with the designers to check if it needs adjustments. But what we have now is already a result of continuous re-balancing since our Early Access on Steam in February. Either way, that objective is, as described, optional. As for the Ally AI using gold, it is likely that they have reached the population limit (max troop count) so even if they had the money, they couldn't hire any new troops. We understand that creating an account is indeed an extra step, but aside from being a requirement to purchase, it's also a requirement to play online multiplayer. Other than Steam, you can also sync across your other mobile devices (if you have another iPad). It would also help us fix specific issues to your accounts, and if you register an email address (optional), it helps in password recovery. You can also create multiple free accounts on a single device, if you have a friend or family member who also uses it. If you'd like to go in detail on these, we can answer your questions extensively live on Twitch. Our stream schedule is Monday 7PM EST, Tuesday 10PM EST, Wednesday 7AM EST. Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #18 Nullzone, Sep 12, 2016 Hi Monika, thanks for chiming in, and so quickly to boot No worries, creating an account was just a minor hassle, it goes fast and smooth, no complaints about that. Still, it's a small additional barrier before a purchase. It would help to mention what you wrote in the account creation description. As it's quite some text, I'd add a button "more info" and put it on a separate screen. Replace the current text ("to verify purchase") with something like "needed for multiplayer and multi-platform play", that will make it clearer and should help to overcome any reluctance folks might have. Ah, wish I had time for hopping by on Discord/Twitch. Maybe on a weekend evening, when the kid's in bed already Which reminds me to second Ayjona's request for async multiplayer. I almost never have the time to sit down for more than 30 minutes in a row, so realtime MP is pretty much out for me. Async would alleviate that constraint, a turn shouldn't take longer than a minute or three to place. Much better suited for folks with little spare time. Re: AI and Gold: I don't think the Orcs had hit their unit cap. One, they always got slaughtered by the Kingdoms when a fight broke out. And two, in one turn Kingdoms killed all Orc heroes, and I gave them 3000 Gold the next turn. When the heroes respawned, they got butchered again, didn't look as if they bought good units with all that money. Will give that first Fae stage another shot, see if I can make it work. However, even an optional objective shouldn't be that hard to complete in the first stage of a campaign. Unless you are going all-out sadistic with the difficulty, that is gmattergames Well-Known Member Mar 1, 2013 607 41 28 #19 gmattergames, Sep 12, 2016 Agree with Nullzone, requiring account creation will deter many potential mobile customers who would otherwise have no issue with cost. For customers who don't want or need this benefit, couldn't you create a guest account automatically only prompting for and requiring email credentials for those wanting to take advantage of cross platform sync? Nullzone ð® Spam Police ð Jul 12, 2013 3,669 79 48 Male #20 Nullzone, Sep 12, 2016 Almost missed that one. FYI: a pentagram is not (necessarily) satanic, go tell that to e.g. a Wiccan or Mormon and wait for the reaction With all its presence in fantasy and occult lore, in this context I find any religious interpretation quite off the whack. (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 1 of 4 1 2 3 4 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Do you already have an account? No, create an account now. Yes, my password is: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
Impressions Let's not all go and post impressions all at once... Downloading now, how can't I for the free price tag? I hope I absolutely love this game as I can't say how big a fan I am of the genre and moreso the pricing model! Free to try out and then a premium price for a premium game. Can't wait to dive in and I wish the Dev success.
Wow, this game is honestly pretty amazing. I was not expecting much because the screenshots did not load for this post (for a while), and the description is fairly vague in how the game actually plays. The screenshots may make the game look like RISK, but this is actually closer to a Warlords, King's Bounty, or HOMM style game. There is actually a great deal of complexity here, and the one major difference between this one and KB/HOMM are the lack of tactical battles. That suits me just fine as I would really enjoy those battles the first few times in those games, then I would just auto (or have a massive advantage) just to get through those tactical battles as quickly as possible so I could get back to the main game. Here, the combat is automatic (and can be sped up or skipped entirely). Your heroes are the cornerstones of your armies, and they are what you will be maneuvering around the map. You have options like conquering territories, constructing buildings on territories (so far mainly gold and population centers, or towers that you can hire troops from), razing enemy territories, or putting your army into a garrisoned position. There is more happening each turn than in a typical HOMM game though, as you have seasons that rotate. The seasons raise and lower your gold income, population limits, as well as dictate how many cards you draw each turn. Don't get too hung up on the cards if you don't like card games though. This aspect is similar to RISK. The cards you draw are random and give you small benefits in combat, construction, or occupation. Think of them as small little gambits you can use when it suits you best. So far, the campaign has been pretty interesting, with a variety of goals to shoot for and optional objectives as well (though, my usual strategy of killing and conquering all is mostly working up to this point). Each faction has a handful of different units, and I think there is a way to even get opposing faction units to join you as well (I've seen the computer do it, but haven't done it myself). There is a minimal diplomacy section (think basic MOO2 or the simpler CIV games). Also, I haven't encountered anything on the world maps yet that would be similar to the odd quests or encounters you could have in the newer HOMM or newer KB games. Still, this is a really great game. The tutorial was ok, but a quick tip is that pressing on almost any UI element will give you a nice description of what it is and how to use it. Edit: Completely forgot about multiplayer which I haven't tried yet. Honestly I generally like the solo campaign in these types of games, but it could be good.
I downloaded this and completed the tutorial, and it seems to be right up my alley, especially as I love the boardgame Risk. It's very simple, although I'm not sure how damage works in battles. Wish I could maybe slow it down a bit, and some of the text in-game can't be read because it disappears too quickly. Everything else is a lot of fun and very well made, and I can't wait to try out some of the Campaign, as I can see myself paying to unlock this one.
I played for a while and it's pretty good! It's disturbing the first main screen with the pentagon and the undead. I don't know for others but I would NOT like to see every time the pentagon when starting the game. Sure it has magic, fantasy, etc but not all the people like satanic symbols, especially in front of your face. Besides this, it's like RISK and other conquest games. I like the fact that it has online (not tested) in real time and not wait and wait (pass and play). I like the graphics, presentation, music (fits well) and gameplay overall. It has 30 single player campaign with almost 40 hours of gameplay !! Fantastic! And more important you don't need an internet connection all the time !! I wish other games will follow this path.
Played on Steam, always thought it would be great on mobile. It's a great blend of several games, the obvious being risk, but much deeper. Expect this to appeal to most casual boardgame lovers, especially anyone who's always wanted a high-fantasy themed risk. Dispite its appeal, the $25 price to unlock is excessive and would expect it to be prohibitive for most, likely resulting in boomzap missing out on this games fiscal potential. I'd recommend individual IAP's to unlock each faction, as well as a full unlock currently available. The one part of the game least satisfying, is combat. It automatic clash of each sides armies, phased by unit attack type. Combat, while flashy, is chaotic and sometimes difficult to follow.
I LOVE Satanic imagery!! Color me sold. I'll pay the $25 to unlock everything!!! I try not to let imaginary, mythological characters get me down.
Do we know any pattern for combat? How we will know before battle what units are better for the combat? E.g. magic defeats ground units or not? Besides the eye icon that lets you know the possible result, any table stats would be also extremely helpful so that you can have specific type of armies against any enemy.
This is good. Really good. A very accessible and quite casual boardgame-4X-light, but with quite a few unique touches, and not without depth and width of strategy. With the addition of asynchronous online play*, it could become a mobile multiplayer classic. Legends of Callasia is the perhaps ideal candidate for async. It would be a Starbase Orion-like dream to always have active matches and take turns in Callasia throughout my days, and not just limit the fun to short, dedicated sessions. While there are a good number of async games of high quality for iOS, we are still short-changed in the 4X/empire-building space. I also hope iPhone support is added soon. The interface would make the transition to the smaller screen beatifully, and is nowhere near as complex or cumbersome as quite a few board games which already have a successful presence on iPhone (not to mention the complex 4X and TBS titles available for iOS). The appreciation of the genre is not limited to tablets and desktop machines (the Days of Wonder argument). (The opposite. Turn-based games are perhaps the ideal iPhone genre, since they never suffer from lack of physical controls, and the turn-based nature means lack of screen real estate will not make the action harder to react to. And the smartphone, in return, is the ideal device for digital multiplayer board-war-strategy-gaming, always in our pockets, enabling us to take turns at any given moment and thus keep games alive throughout the day. As opposed to only during dedicated gaming sessions. No reason to settle for either when we carry all this gaming potential on our persons.) * Contrary to bizarre popular belief, asynchronous play is not the anthi-thesis of realtime. It is an addition. Properly implemented (in the manner of Carcassonne and Playdek titles), async mechanics only pick up when one player leaves a realtime game (and thus also doubles as autosave/connection loss protection). And there is no reason the addition of async should take away the option to play realtime only games, as one poster in this thread seems to worry.
Hi, I'm Allan, one of the devs for Legends of Callasia. First I wanted to thank all of you for the amazing feedback; it's always a pleasure to hear from players, and you've got no idea how good it is to hear people enjoying the game, especially right now So far Callasia has been a very different development experience for us. We've tried a bunch of things; some worked really well, and we'll do more of those. Some did not, and we'll.. not repeat that. I thought I'd talk about a few of them. So; first, price. There's a good, a bad and an ugly part of that, and I'll try to tackle them in reverse order. First the ugly; the price is indeed $14.99, not $24.99; the reason you're getting the wrong price is also the reason you wouldn't be able to purchase the title even if you didn't die from nosebleed. When we submitted the App to Apple we didn't include the IAP in the package; we spotted that more or less immediately, resubmitted, and have been sitting (in a corner, rocking back and forth) waiting for Apple to finish their review and post the fixed version live since. 2 days never felt so long. Let's move to the bad; we know even 14.99 is high for a mobile game. It certainly moves it out of impulse buy territory. A lot of us game on multiple platforms (for myself I game on iPhone6, a Samsung Note 4, an iPad3, a dual-booted Macbook Pro and a PS4). One thing we hate is to have to re-purchase the same game for each new platform, especially in the case of something like Callasia, where you can play cross-platform, and there's a persistent account tracking progress. Which brings me to the Good part; we had the idea of make the game 'buy once, play anywhere'; if you purchase the game on one platform, it's automatically unlocked (through the persistent account) on all other platforms. The word "heartstone" was mentioned periodically, and we went on record about this at gaming conventions and talking to magazines Our first issue with this was when we launched on Steam. We started out on Early Access as a Free game with a single-unlock IAP. To a lot of Steam users this smelled like F2P, and some early reviews suspected us of planning to go full Zynga on them. After some chatting with Steam the game is now in the Premium side of the store, with a Free demo. If you unlock the game on iOS, you download the Demo version on Steam, which plays identical to the Full game if your account is unlocked. Which delivers the functionality we wanted, but it's not intuitive to the player. The other issue happens now; the fact that you get the same functionality whether you buy the game on Steam or on iOS means we really need to price it the same. So we're either left pricing the Steam version at something like 4.99, or putting the iOS version at Steam price. We ended up compromising, reducing the Steam price from 24.99 to 14.99, and risking sticker-shock on iOS/Android. It's a pretty good example of just how badly lost you can get even with the best of intentions, and not something we'll ever do again. So; what DID work? It's the first time we've tackled genuine multiplayer as a company, and I think it worked out really well. The server infrastructure is solid, the cross-platform multiplayer works great, and we've got a really cool community. Speaking of the community ,that's the other thing that's gone really well. Like most game companies we've traditionally not engaged that much with our users. At best we talked TO them, but not WITH them. Callasia represented an attempt to complete change that. We stream the development of the game every day, we've got a public discord channel where the devs hang out all day while working, and are happy to get into discussions of everything from the gender of dwarfs to the balancing of maps and cards. We've committed to a weekly release cadence of bug-fixes, new content and updates (which we've kept up now since April), and we've got an amazing group of people that have sent us everything from explicit Dwarf Fanfics to fanart, from bug-reports to helping with lore. We've also tried to cultivate that as we could; we're sponsoring a fan art contest , there's also a big ranked match competition that kicked off 2 days ago. We spend a lot of time talking to, and learning from, the live stream community. I think all of those things have been great, and we hope to continue to build on that. We hope you enjoy the game; I usually hang out in the TA forums, so feel free to AMA. Allan
Hey, Allan! Awesome to see you turn up in the TA forums. Very few things endear a game and its developers to us TAers more than an active conversation with the player base. The price is anything but ugly. I'd gladly have payed the full 25 dollars. 15 is a steal. But yes, this might not be a common sentiment. As for your AMA offering, take a look at my post just above yours when you've the time. Can we expect either of these essential functionalities any time soon?
I can quite vividly imagine that. I like your thinking on the price. I'm a huge fan of free demos. I'd rather pay more for a game I know I like than cross my fingers on $5. At $25 I'd be very leery of buying - I'd want a lot of replayability, and - generous as the demo is - it isn't enough to make me secure about that. At $15, though, I'm definitely in.
Hello Allan, great to see you here, very much appreciated. Thanks for the IAP explanation, saves me the trouble of writing a bugreport Will wait for the update to arrive. And for the record: I was perfectly fine with the 25$ pricepoint. Callasia definitely looks like it's worth it, and made a great impression with the 3 free stages. Gameplay/balance - First Faefolk stage "Straits of Dranacor": In the first Faefolk stage, you have the optional objective to help the Orcs/Kingdoms to wipe the other off the map. I only tried Orcs, and in 5 or 6 attempts I could not get the objective, and got very much curbstomped by the Revenant enemy as I had to spread my forces over 2+ fronts. I gave up on it, and restarted the stage. This time, I rushed the Undead Capital, steamrolled the few troops they had there and won in under 10 turns. Either I just got very (un)lucky, or the balance is a tad out of whack. And a question: When you send tribute to an AI ally, do they make use of that Gold? In the above scenario (allied with the Orcs on Fae stage 1), I sent them a few thousand Gold I had lying around to strengthen their warchest, but never saw them bringing out the armies they could buy with that money. Last, I am not sure if requiring an account with you to purchase the full game on iOS is a good design decision. I'd imagine that it puts a lot of people off for various reasons (too much extra effort, "*another* account? Nope, thanks, pass.", etc.). My first reaction was on the "too much effort" side, would surprise me if I'm alone with that. For people like me who don't want/need the sync with Steam and whatnot, could you offer a purchase option without account if it's not too much work to implement?
does IAP purchase working now? It seems not works to me Everytime I cliked the purchase button, nothing happens.
If the price is indeed 14,99$ you have me as a customer because from playing only the tutorial I feel the game is worth it and I hate free to play.
Not yet, I just tried too ~30 minutes ago. Update is not available yet, Netherlands here. @odin: your comment sounds as if Apple already approved the update and you put it live? Or are you waiting for Apple approval still?
Hi guys! Monika here, also from the Callasia dev team. I'm also Monika in-game if you'd like to play some multiplayer matches some time. As Allan said, we're all active on both Discord and Twitch. It would be great if you could drop by and also meet some of the other Callasia players! To clarify, the update has been submitted to Apple, and we're still waiting for review. Hopefully we get approval soon. Hi Nullzone! I shared your feedback on the first Faeborne campaign with the designers to check if it needs adjustments. But what we have now is already a result of continuous re-balancing since our Early Access on Steam in February. Either way, that objective is, as described, optional. As for the Ally AI using gold, it is likely that they have reached the population limit (max troop count) so even if they had the money, they couldn't hire any new troops. We understand that creating an account is indeed an extra step, but aside from being a requirement to purchase, it's also a requirement to play online multiplayer. Other than Steam, you can also sync across your other mobile devices (if you have another iPad). It would also help us fix specific issues to your accounts, and if you register an email address (optional), it helps in password recovery. You can also create multiple free accounts on a single device, if you have a friend or family member who also uses it. If you'd like to go in detail on these, we can answer your questions extensively live on Twitch. Our stream schedule is Monday 7PM EST, Tuesday 10PM EST, Wednesday 7AM EST.
Hi Monika, thanks for chiming in, and so quickly to boot No worries, creating an account was just a minor hassle, it goes fast and smooth, no complaints about that. Still, it's a small additional barrier before a purchase. It would help to mention what you wrote in the account creation description. As it's quite some text, I'd add a button "more info" and put it on a separate screen. Replace the current text ("to verify purchase") with something like "needed for multiplayer and multi-platform play", that will make it clearer and should help to overcome any reluctance folks might have. Ah, wish I had time for hopping by on Discord/Twitch. Maybe on a weekend evening, when the kid's in bed already Which reminds me to second Ayjona's request for async multiplayer. I almost never have the time to sit down for more than 30 minutes in a row, so realtime MP is pretty much out for me. Async would alleviate that constraint, a turn shouldn't take longer than a minute or three to place. Much better suited for folks with little spare time. Re: AI and Gold: I don't think the Orcs had hit their unit cap. One, they always got slaughtered by the Kingdoms when a fight broke out. And two, in one turn Kingdoms killed all Orc heroes, and I gave them 3000 Gold the next turn. When the heroes respawned, they got butchered again, didn't look as if they bought good units with all that money. Will give that first Fae stage another shot, see if I can make it work. However, even an optional objective shouldn't be that hard to complete in the first stage of a campaign. Unless you are going all-out sadistic with the difficulty, that is
Agree with Nullzone, requiring account creation will deter many potential mobile customers who would otherwise have no issue with cost. For customers who don't want or need this benefit, couldn't you create a guest account automatically only prompting for and requiring email credentials for those wanting to take advantage of cross platform sync?
Almost missed that one. FYI: a pentagram is not (necessarily) satanic, go tell that to e.g. a Wiccan or Mormon and wait for the reaction With all its presence in fantasy and occult lore, in this context I find any religious interpretation quite off the whack.
