Hello TouchArcade. I'm Keith Burgun, lead designer at Dinofarm Games, the makers of 100 Rogues. Today I'd like to really formally introduce you to our next game, Auro: A Monster-Bumping Adventure. It's another dungeon-crawler, although it's very different from 100 Rogues or really, any game you've ever played before. It will be available on iOS and Android at release, and on PC, Mac and Linux soon after! It's almost out, after four long years of hard work! For now, please check out this How-To-Play video! Auro is a tactical game of BUMPING: use your abilities against those of monsters to get a good position. The object of the game is to get a certain number of points before running out of health. You can find a lot of information and updates here on our successful KICKSTARTER that we ran last year: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinofarmgames/auro
Not sure, just yet. Possibly, but we may also have our own leaderboards. We need to discuss it! What do you guys think the best option is for a high score system?
We haven't even begun to address how highscores will work. One thing that I'm starting to believe is that global high score boards are a lot less interesting and cool than I used to think. I'm much more excited about getting a high score board that involves you and a bunch of your friends, or some other smaller division. But in terms of cross-platform, yeah. The games are the same so the high scores should be the same.
well IOS has game center built right in, but Open feint is also another option and that works on android. I think if you are using game center you need achievements though. which could be an interesting way to get the player to try and do some extra stuff within the game.
I'm not sure. We may use both of those, or have our own external high scores server. It's good that we have options. In terms of achievements, if they were in the game at all they would be there only because something forced us to put them in, or because players expected them to be there. Generally I'm not a fan of them for a few reasons, which we can get into if you'd like. That reminds me. We will have other classes available for purchase. Not sure if we want to frame it in a new way... considering trying a phrasing like, "Support the developers! Make a donation (as low as 1 dollar) and get this extra class!" Just a thought. -Keith
If you're gonna go with that, I'd like to put a suggestion that you add a multi-buy option. i.e. there are 3 classes, each one costs $.99 but all 3 will cost $1.99. I'm a big fan of that model, as it means you don't ever really need to have sales like we always see on the AppStore - more consistency to you and the players, and value to those who want it.
Hmm... Not a bad idea. I guess we'd have to have really two "apps" for that on the store, though right? Which could get pretty complicated, especially being that we're not just on iOS, also android, PC, Mac, Linux...
I have a new post going into more detail about two ability trees! Check it out! http://www.dinofarmgames.com/?p=724 Let us know what you guys think!
Awesome Article. So I have been wondering. How are you introducing these to the player. We know what set flame does because we have read the article, but how are you letting the player know exactly how it works. Is it going to be in a tutorial? or will it be from experimenting with the game to learn how it operates?
Firstly take a look at this new promotional AURO picture by artist Hanzo Steinbach! Okay so now to answer your question... Auro has a totally "open information" policy. When you click on an ability to learn it, there is text at the top of the screen that tells you briefly what the ability does. If you click on that text you're brought to a relevant MANUAL screen which tells you all the information that there is to know about how the skill in question works. With that said, the abilities are all designed to behave, for the most part, as expected. If you're setting a fire, you might expect it to hurt you if you walk into it. You also might expect it to spread and eventually die out. You might also expect it to melt ice. This is how fire works in our game.
That sounds ridiculously awesome, but we've become accustomed to expect fire in games to be very, very controlled. It's not what most people will expect from your game at first. They'll learn. That picture is just wow. So good.
Just added this post, called "Common Misconceptions about Auro". Will add it to the OP. http://www.dinofarmgames.com/?p=751
Nice details and nice picture above! Do we have an estimated release date for this? Also, Keith, don't you want to think a bit of the colours and patterns of the interface? It's too pink(ish) for my taste (did not see the game in motion, though). All in all, eagerly waiting for this.
This looks awesome, i really like 100 rogues, and this seems like such an unique game, im so looking forward to try it out.
About the UI: We're going to be completely re-doing it. We'd appreciate any and all advice on all that stuff. Open Alpha will start in a week or two - we're currently in closed alpha. Anyway, today our lead artist Blake Reynolds wrote an extensive post about some of the pixel art for the game. All fans of pixel art should check this out! http://www.dinofarmgames.com/?p=791