iPhone Patchwork Battle - A new Crafting-Sim / RPG currently In Development

First off, thank you everyone for the replies and showing interest! I was starting to wonder if the idea wasn't good enough (I was building Patchwork either way, even if it wasn't good enough! hahah) =)

The biggest reason for us (well, me, hah) taking the time to evaluate Unity is because of it's cross platform offerings. The same core code can be used across Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Web Browser, Xbox, Wii, PS3. That's not saying I won't need to make platform specific code changes, but Unity makes it a lot easier by giving you A LOT of reusable parts. No complete rewrite is what I'm getting at

This does not mean I'll be taking the Unity route out of the gate. We may see Patchwork released for iOS first and then later ported to Unity. I have not made a decision on this yet. However it's safe to say that, one way or another, there will hopefully be a non-iOS version of Patchwork available.

To be quite honest, I'm not aiming for both audiences separately. Instead my aim is really at the Casually Hardcore players. A good example of what I mean here is Dungeon Raid. The game is very easy to pick up and play. The game starts out pretty easy and slowly scales in difficulty. Eventually, the casual players drop out (gets too hard for them, they die, etc) and the hardcore players keep going. The casual players can always come back and play again.

There are two things that I think are really great about that approach - 1) You can get, and keep, the casual "I don't want anything too hard" players. They can still play the game for a while before it gets too difficult. and 2) Your casual fanbase slowly becomes better and better at the game, advancing further each game. This keeps them coming back and playing.

You're going to see this type of system and scaling in Patchwork. The first bunch of waves will be fairly easy. As you progress the waves will get harder and harder.

I do, however, plan on doing some things targeted for the different playerbases. For instance, Patchwork is def. going to have a difficulty setting that can be changed on the fly (unless you're in the middle of a battle). I am also working on designing out a "hint" system where you can have the game provide strategy tips during battles. These tips will either come from the system (i.e, it knows what it would do in this situation) or from a "Social Hint Service" that I'm debating building into the game. Haven't decided yet

Keep the comments, input, and suggestions coming. I love reading what people think and what they want to see.

 

We have not yet settled on a style for the backgrounds. We are 50% for using the same style as the characters and 50% against it, going with something a little different that still complements the design of the sprites.

Our concern is doing too much of the same thing may cause the sprites to really lose their appeal. We're testing ideas out though, so we should have a direction relatively shortly.

My goal is to get a couple short videos uploaded tomorrow to show off the animation system we're going with. I really want to get people's feedback on it. I love the way it looks but I'm not sure how everyone else is going to feel about it.

 

You're most welcome!

You did not misunderstand. You will never start over in Patchwork. However, if you ever hit a point where the wave is to difficult for you to beat, you can drop the difficulty setting down. If you feel that you're getting better and want more of a challenge, you can increase the difficulty.

So while you will never start over (you're always progressing), you can tweak your difficulty settings to keep the game enjoyable for you and keep you moving forward. I should also note that the difficulty system I've designed out is more than just "Easy, Normal, Hard". This is a game about customization and experimentation, and the difficulty sliders keep that same feel.

 

I'm hesitant to say you NEVER run out of content, because ultimately there has to be an end. However, there will be a fair amount of content to play through. When I said "You never start over" I meant in the way you start over, from the beginning, like in Dungeon Raid.

There will be about 500 - 1,000 waves to fight through when the game is released. You can go back and play any wave you've beaten again. This, combined with difficult sliders, creates a pretty big set of playable content. Add in higher difficulties dropping better loot and there is a lot of content to see and do. Sure, it all revolves around battling and crafting.. but that's the idea

 

As promised, here's an early alpha of the starting sequence for the caster attacks. The video is short, but it will at least you show the style we're going with.

I filmed this with my phone so please excuse the quality. My video camera is dead and a screen record of the simulator didn't work out too well (the iPad simulator is too big for my 13inch MacBook, and viewing it at 50% just wasn't cutting it, haha). I'll get a better quality video uploaded once I raid my mother's recorder tomorrow! hah!

Also - the slight "jitter" you see in a couple of the movements is the recording, not the actual animations. When viewed live on the iPad they run extremely smooth

 

It may be a bit too slow, it's something I'm going to have to play with and tweak as the game progresses. The time it takes the Mimic to walk out and attack is needed by the other player. He can use this time to dodge, block, etc.. so I can't make it too short, but I can't make it too long either. It's going to be a while before it's balanced =)

 

Every attack animation does not involved holding up their weapons. I'm working on the melee attack animations right now. These will be a bit more complex then the mages.

Casters can't attack, in your typical sense. They can only cast spells. This is why them holding up their weapon makes sense. Melee (and the Archer) characters can physically attack, so they will have more fancy animations. You can expect those animations to follow the same style, however. You can only do so much when the character's don't have elbows!

 

Honestly, I'm doing it the hard way and not using any application. I'm coding all the animations by hand. It s-u-c-k-s but I haven't been able to find anything that wasn't either overly complex for my needs or too just didn't provide the functionality I was working towards.

I could have written my own tool but since there are really so few different animations (Staff, Sword, Shield, Bow for Attacks, Walking, and Death) that I need to animate through code (Spells and what not are particle effects, using Particle Designer for cocos2d for this) I figured I'd just hand code them. Of course, if I could find a tool to fit my needs I'd adopt it in a heartbeat! Any suggestions? hehe. Currently though, they are just custom CCActions within cocos2d that can be run on any of the different part sprites.

Thanks for poking into the thread, Liv Games. Keep up the great work with Legendary Wars. It's one of the few games on my iPhone that have survived the many resets

Also, for an update, I'll have some special information and updates to share with everyone in the next couple of weeks. I have my wedding this weekend so Patchwork hasn't seen as much development in the past week or so as I would like, but I'm still chugging along. Once all the crazies are done I'll be popping in with some updates and such.

 

Just checking in with everyone! Patchwork is still moving ahead a fairly decent rate. It's undergone some feature changes recently but nothing that has changed the core game mechanic. In fact, I think we've enhanced the "It's your game, do what you want with it" idea 10 folder.

I'm working on writing up these changes to post here, so please stay tuned