Robot Entertainment announces “Hero Academy” a new iOS game!

 After a teaser on the website for the last few days, Robot Entertainment have taken the wraps off Game 3.0 – Hero Academy! Hero Academy is a game for iOS which means it will be compatible with iPhone and iPad’s. So lets delve in and find out what its all about!

About the game:

Hero Academy is all about equipping your own character, or “hero” and preparing them against battle with your friends. In typical Robot / Ex Ensemble fashion there is a strong sense of strategy. Players can cast spells and deploy countermeasures in order to both attack and defend themselves. Each turn players have the choice of either attacking, defending or using an item. Sounds a bit like Rock, Paper Scissors! The game sets a very light-hearted view on things with very cartoony 2D appearance, no gruesome Orcs to slay here!

The turn by turn gameplay takes place asynchronously and supports push notifications so you will know precisely when a player has made their turn. Similar to the method used on NewToy/Zynga’s “Words with Friends”.This means you can either play a whole game in a space of 20 minutes with all friends making their moves straight away, or you can take the more relaxed approach and make moves in the space of a day or two. The pace is yours (and your friends!).

Lets take a look at what Robot Entertainment has to say about the game:

Teams have gathered from all over the world to engage in friendly
contests before seeking adventure in the wider world beyond the
Academy’s walls. The Academy extends a warm greeting to all players
– whether they’re already heroes, or simply heroes-in-training. Success
belongs to the captain that can keep both his magical crystal and his
team intact in this light-hearted battle between friends!

•  Highly accessible turn-based gameplay that’s easy to learn – jump right in and play!
•  Play with friends, or challenge random opponents.
•  Colorful, light-hearted graphics and sound.
•  Random elements and multiple playfields – never the same game twice!
•  Get started with the human Council team, including Knights, Wizards, and the mysterious Ninja.
•  Expand your roster with additional teams!
•  Customize your team with in-app purchases such as avatar portraits.
•  Chat with your opponent ingame.
•  Push notifications update you when new turns are available!
•  Challenge your Facebook friends!
•  Invite your Twitter followers to play

Screenshots

Nothing helps describe a game better than screenshots so lets take a look at the light-hearted turn by turn strategy game below!

Release date, pricing and more details

The game is aiming to be released sometime this winter on the iOS platform which means we should expect it certainly on iPhone. There are currently no plans to release on other platforms unfortunately so Android and Windows Phone users are currently out of luck. In terms of pricing, as is typical among iPhone games there will be a free ad-supported version and also a paid for version. Players who purchase the “Dark elf” team not only get the extra team, but also get the removal of all advertising. Certainly sounds like a good deal that players get an extra team alongside the ad removal.

Wrapping up

It’s interesting to see Robot produce an iPhone game, a path that many studios have taken from the Ex Ensemble. At the community event in February there was a suggestion that Robot would do an iPhone game if the opportunity presented itself and that there was suitable motivation for the project. Its great to see the studio is flexible with ideas, concepts and platforms. There is no doubt alot of creativity and buzz amongst the bots to develop games based on any ideas they think would make a fun experience and are not tying themselves down to any particular IP, publisher or console.

Keep a close eye on updates for Hero Academy. Hopefully there will be a video trailer up soon so that we can see more clearly what the game and the mechanics are like! A task perhaps for resident video making extraordinaire, Dunkman!