"Odd Squad" - where Magic: The Gathering meets a turn-based tactical board game

[berkeleymalagon]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Berkeley Malagon (@BerkeleyMalagon) and I'm the founder of a new mobile game studio named "FireStick Games", based in Seattle. Before this, I was the CEO of the company that created "The Moron Test", the popular mobile brainteaser.

The three of us at FireStick have just released "Odd Squad", a free, turn-based PVP, tactics/strategy game with a deep collectible-component aspect.



The team has invested a lot of love and passion to make a game that is, in our opinion, the best strategy & tactics game available in mobile - even with all the rough edges that come with any v1.0. Early response has shown that it manages to be the "real" CCG ("collectible-component game") that, for instance, "Magic: The Gathering" players will love, while not alienating casual gamers. We couldn't be more proud of this game.



Unlike other tactics/strategy games in mobile, Odd Squad doesn't gloss over the collectible-component aspect. Each component is a unique "Oddity" and plays an interesting role with its particular powers, attributes, and effects. You earn more Oddities by playing PVP matches, and then you use those Oddities to design Squads that fit your (or your opponent's) play style. This will sound familiar to TCG fans who maintain expansive collections of cards to draw from, and build smaller "decks" for actual matches. This gives Odd Squad a deeply engaging, open, and personal feel - players have the space to hone and master their unique strategies.



The whole game was concepted, designed, illustrated and developed by only two people - a bad-ass artist named Anna Berentsen (@TheAnnagator) and a beast-like game designer, developer, and producer named Josh Lytle (@joshlytle). Anna is an avid video game fan and has worked on everything from sprite sheets for casual 2D games to complex 3D models for first-person shooters. Josh, among a lot of other things, has done a ton of design in the CCG space, including work on "The Spoils", an actual, physical TCG ("trading card game") that was critically acclaimed.



Please take a few minutes to check out this game. Your feedback would (honestly) really help shape our roadmap. And if you love the game, please share it with your friends, family, followers... anyone. We're a small, independent studio on a tight budget (no publisher, no investors, no backers, just us) so every bit helps. We're investing out-of-pocket and losing sleep to keep this game going because we believe in it and we think this is a game that has been missing in mobile, and we know we're the team to build it.

Thanks for your time and attention - I know this is a long post.

Odd Squad: http://bit.ly/10nWvEk
Game Center: "firestickgames".
Twitter: @OddSquadGame

Hope to see you on the battlefields!

Berkeley Malagon and the team here at FireStick Games

[undeadcow]

"Free"... Blah... Not sure why developers cripple promising games like this by shoe horning in "get rich quick" freemium gimmicks.

[Talbs]

Cool!
Looks interesting. This should go in the iphone and iPod games section though.
Also..no AI? That's a shame, because even the best games can have a dwindling online community. Even though their sales might be good. Not every one has time to wait for opponents turn or if asynch, come back to it every few hours. Please consider AI.

[berkeleymalagon]

Originally Posted by Talbs

Cool!
Looks interesting. This should go in the iphone and iPod games section though.
Also..no AI? That's a shame, because even the best games can have a dwindling online community. Even though their sales might be good. Not every one has time to wait for opponents turn or if asynch, come back to it every few hours. Please consider AI.

Great points about the AI, single-player, and online community - we totally agree it's a missing piece. Our plan for single-player has been to introduce a whole series of puzzles/challenges, like the ones in the tutorial. An AI system for Odd Squad would be awesome, too, and perhaps more satisfying (and fun to build!) - it just comes down to how much time we have left.

Unfortunately, we really are on a tiny budget, so we're hoping the game starts supporting the studio so we have enough time to get to these.

Thanks for taking the time to give feedback!

[berkeleymalagon]

Originally Posted by undeadcow

"Free"... Blah... Not sure why developers cripple promising games like this by shoe horning in "get rich quick" freemium gimmicks.

I encourage you to check out the game before judging it. It was intentionally designed to be completely enjoyable without spending any money. In fact, that's our entire philosophy on monetizing any of our games.

BTW, I assure you that making games, freemium or not, is *not* a quick way to get rich. Anyone who has actually tried to run a game studio will tell you that. The vast majority of games fail at significant losses (of time, money, and soul), and players lose out on great follow-up titles when promising studios fail.

The reality is that studios need to keep the doors open. There are absolutely some bad freemium apples out there, but the model itself is certainly not inherently evil.

Anyway, hope you give it a shot.

[DaviddesJ]

Since the game is out, this should be in "iPhone and iPod touch Games", rather than "Upcoming iPhone and iPod touch Games".

I wish you luck, but it's really hard to get traction for something like this. There's already a lot of vaguely similar games, most of which are better resourced and still struggling to get traction themselves.

[ShaggyPKA]

Hey guys, just wanted to give you some feedback. I usually don't give free collectible card games a second look on the App Store because they end up costing way too much and reward those who pay more. However I was intrigued with Odd Squad's art style and the idea of a magic/ turn based strategy mix so I thought I'd try it. So far pretty fun! Art is great and it seems to have a lot of depth to it. I like how you can earn points at a reasonable rate.

My questions/ suggestions.
Most importantly, I would love to see an AI to play against. The downside to those kinds of games is that when it's not your turn, you just have to sit there and stare at your cards. I would love to play against an AI and try different strategies. I would happily pay to unlock AI

Is there any way you could add a card catalogue of all the cards? It would help me see what I'm shooting for.

Third, I wouldn't mind paying to just unlock all of the cards. I'm not sure how you could do it, but you could maybe just throw some premium "unlock all" option out there and I would be happy to pay it. Especially if I could fight some AI


Good luck with everything and I look forward to seeing where this game goes

[ShaggyPKA]

One more thing. I just played a game where my opponent forfeited to me on round 5. It said that I won, but I did not receive any odd points. Is this a bug or do you have to finish the full game to get the points?

[berkeleymalagon]

Originally Posted by DaviddesJ

Since the game is out, this should be in "iPhone and iPod touch Games", rather than "Upcoming iPhone and iPod touch Games".

I wish you luck, but it's really hard to get traction for something like this. There's already a lot of vaguely similar games, most of which are better resourced and still struggling to get traction themselves.

Thanks for rooting for us! Totally true that it's tough to get traction. We have an update coming soon that will hopefully open up new ways to spread the game.

Btw, I'll try to find how to move the thread. Sorry! I'm a newb on this forum.

[berkeleymalagon]

Originally Posted by ShaggyPKA

Hey guys, just wanted to give you some feedback. I usually don't give free collectible card games a second look on the App Store because they end up costing way too much and reward those who pay more. However I was intrigued with Odd Squad's art style and the idea of a magic/ turn based strategy mix so I thought I'd try it. So far pretty fun! Art is great and it seems to have a lot of depth to it. I like how you can earn points at a reasonable rate.

My questions/ suggestions.
Most importantly, I would love to see an AI to play against. The downside to those kinds of games is that when it's not your turn, you just have to sit there and stare at your cards. I would love to play against an AI and try different strategies. I would happily pay to unlock AI

Is there any way you could add a card catalogue of all the cards? It would help me see what I'm shooting for.

Third, I wouldn't mind paying to just unlock all of the cards. I'm not sure how you could do it, but you could maybe just throw some premium "unlock all" option out there and I would be happy to pay it. Especially if I could fight some AI


Good luck with everything and I look forward to seeing where this game goes

Thanks for giving the game a shot! You're right to be skeptical at first - so much crap out there. I'll let Anna and Josh know that the art and premise drew you in Also, I'm stoked to hear that you're finding the rate you get rewarded to be reasonable. We really tried to make the game fun and fair assuming any given player wouldn't spend money to speed up the accumulation of Odd Coins.

Your points about AI being more instantly gratifying and a better way to quickly test strategies are great - haven't heard that reasoning before and I'm sold on the idea. We'll talk about that as a team and see what's possible with the time we have left.

We're playing with ways to show a catalog of all the Oddities. We'd like to give you a sense of how many there are, but we also want to keep some of the mystery One of the better ideas right now is showing a silhouette of them all and blocking out their names/details until you collect them. Thoughts?

Selling the entire collection is an interesting idea. This is a tough question, I know, but how much would you be willing to pay for that?

Thanks for the feedback and ideas!