The iOS version is currently scheduled for August, 28. Provided everything works out as expected with Apple's app approval process, this is a quite realistic date.
Where did the original post trailer come from? "An unforgiving enemy is watching your every move..." Good stuff.
The trailer was made in collaboration with Monoplane, a small film advertising studio from Budapest (http://monoplane.tv/). While they are mainly focused on movies, they have a few game trailers as well. I really like their cinematic approach of presenting game material, and they are very easy to work with and offer fair prices.
In all likelihood Tactics Maiden will be made available for Windows phones and tablets, too. It looks quite promising already, but I have to run more thorough tests before I can finally confirm it. As for PC, Mac, Linux...I'll definitely have a thorough look at it as well.
It was really great to see how our engaged beta testers have turned into co-designers, injecting many years of additional role playing experience into the game. Together with undeadcow, Nullzone and JCaps we have designed and added 10 additional class skills to Tactics Maiden during the beta test: 'Counter', 'Escape Shot', 'Replace', 'Remedy', 'Web Haul', 'Beast Shot', 'Unhorse', 'Pawing', 'Ram' and 'Barkskin'. So the initially advertised 'more than 60 skills' are quite close to 80 now.
Tactics Maiden is a beast of a game. According to the in-game clock I've played Tactics Maiden for 72 hours and 43 minutes, which is just one of the amusing statistics tracked. During this time I've fought 177 story driven hand crafted battles (with 68 resulting in victory, 49 defeats, and 60 retreats in current campaign - on normal difficulty). Granted some of this is due to toying around with beta edition... but it's countinued to feel fresh. Now back to "web haul"ing and "beast shot"ing my way to victory!
Whoopsie, the revenant bovine is right with the clock. Mine is ~70 hours as well. Betatest or not, it does not happen very often that I *want* to play through a second time right away on a harder difficulty, especially after a long game like this (my Hard playthrough clocks in at 33:43 hours) . That alone shows what an amazing job niebau did with Tactics Maiden. Not to mention it didn't feel that long at all. Could have sworn it's only been 10-15 hours or so... Niebau only mentioned the skill changes. But he also did a whole lot of stage finetuning, dialogue changes and additions, polishing the UI, bugfixing, etc.
How are the fight sequences? Does it look good graphically? I know that it doesn't really matter, but if it plays as well as you say it does and it can become a new standard for iOS gaming, it should be really pretty.
The trailer accurately reflects the caliber of graphics, they all seem custom made and detailed but of the pixel based variety.
The graphics are okay. That is the only negative comment I have about TM so far. Yes, I'm spoiled by eyecandy sometimes, and sadly TM does not make the iOS cutting edge bleed. But they are good, in a distinct but simpler style (think e.g. first Battleheart vs. Infinity Blade 3). My eyecancer alarm is triggered by those pixel/8bit retro-style games, as I witnessed those (not so good) old times firsthand and am immensely glad they are behind us Tactics Maiden's graphics are a lot better than those pixel eyesores, and fulfill their task nicely enough. And niebau is only one person, after all. If I'd expect him to do TM in full Unity 3D glory, I'd have to settle in for another year wait easily, I can imagine. --- BATTLES --- The battles are excellent and very well balanced. You will need quite a bit of strategy and tactics, and adjust/change them with difficulty level and goals for the stages (of which there are refreshingly many). On top of that, the game allows for quite varied approaches for your party/army composition. Trying not to spoil anything, so I'll stay rather vague: For example, you can form your army to support a massive assault on one front, or a holding action on one side of the map, to allow other units a fast-moving pincer attack on the other side to e.g. capture an enemy outpost. And for those two strategies, you can choose different ways to go about them again: You can opt for a stealthy approach with lots of units that can hide, focus on tanks or mages, melee or ranged units, or even spellcasters that summon monsters to fill your ranks. This little overview is already quite long, and I am only scratching the surface. If you want to know more details on anything, or if you have things on your mind that I didn't even mention, ask away.
Regarding my above comment: We should open a separate thread just to discuss strategy, tactics and party composition. If anyone can come up with a fitting name, feel free to create one. @niebau: Unless you want to do the honors, of course
Just planning ahead a bit I'll wait till (after) launch, no worries. Plus, feels right to me when niebau creates it; he's the dev, after all.
@qdiddy, @Nullzone: Once the game is out, we'll open a new thread in the 'iPhone and iPad games' category which should serve the purpose of discussing various strategies perfectly. The game also offers a comprehensive but fast-paced in-game tutorial, as well as a 'Tip of the Day' section' with currently over 40 tips and tricks (and more to come). So new players will be brought up to speed in no time.
