Hi All, Let me briefly introduce myself : I’m Michel, co-founder of Mando Productions, the studio behind “Babel Rising 3D”. The title will be launched soon by Ubisoft, and we wanted to open this thread to tell how the game was developed, and also answer your questions (and please also forgive me for my English... it's not my mother tongue). It all started two years ago with the original IOS Babel Rising game, in 2D.The idea was to play God and stop the humans in their attempt in building the Tower of Babel, using divine powers such as tornadoes, tsunamis or earthquakes. We were lucky as the game did quite well. We had then the wish to go further in terms of gameplay and we started thinking on how we could increase the player’s experience. Through brainstorming sessions came out the idea of having a 3D version of the game, allowing the player to rotate around the tower and thus adding a strategic layer to the “arcade / action” principle. We started to make some mock-ups of what the players view would be. This also gave us the idea of different buildings from which the workers would exit, as well as the idea of the harbor where construction stones would arrive. While working on this view, we realized that the game was giving too much importance to the strategy side and that the basic fun should remain simple as “get rid of these pesky humans and unleash your Mighty Powers on them”. So we adjusted the view and namely decided that humans should be bigger. As a consequence, the style that was already “cartoony” evolved even more in this direction, as the proportions between humans and buildings became more unrealistic. The design of the “main” tower also evolved and we abandoned the idea of a square basis, to be more close from our initial “Brueghel inspired” idea. At this stage, the core design was nearly finalized. We decided to develop a 3D playable prototype and… showed it to Ubisoft who said “yes” . Since the decision was taken to move further and develop the game, only adjustments were made. Some major and some minor. Within the main evolutions was namely the decision to add new towers and also specific units such as the Priests or the Siege Towers. The game’s nearly there now, as the release is planned in two weeks. We keep fingers crossed at Mando, hoping that the game will please. Update 1 : Here's a first screenshot of the game. The very beginning of the game - aka The calm before the storm...
Game art looks really nice. I think it would be more inspiring if the player was building the tower against the angry, petulant, childish Christian god, rather than having the player BE the angry, petulant, childish Christian god.
Liked the original, what should I expect in this game? And just saying, I would actually like a more strategic gameplay with the square tower and realistically scaled humans.
Nice peek at the art; definitely looking forward to seeing some video action once available. This should be a hit, for sure.
some informations about the gameplay 3 days before launch... Meanwhile, here are a few informations : There are 12 different "Powers" in the game, that the player - sorry God - can use to destroy the poor babylonians. The powers are divided into four "Elements" : Earth, wind and fire. And, hum... Water. You have to choose two Elements before each mission - and then you play with 6 powers at a time. In each "Element", there are two "simple" powers, always available, and an Ultimate Power - that you have to reload in a specific way before being able to use it - and believe me, it's worth it ! Here's a screenshot of the ultimate power of Water : the mighty Tsunami !
Ugh... Im disgusted as to how much money im going to shell out for upcoming iOS games. This is another instabuy.
Only one day left before launch. Here's the official Teaser, with real game footage from the IOS version. http://youtu.be/JUwSDCqq1AI
