In the latest edition of Game Informer you will find an interview with Robot Entertainment’s CEO, Patrick Hudson. There is also a directors cut version of this interview available online at the Game Informer website. The interview discusses the Halo MMO that was cancelled mid-development at Ensemble Studios and then goes on to talk about the visions for Robot Entertainment including the desire to work on smaller scale products with shorter development times. This vision has been realised already with Orcs Must Die! and Hero Academy which have been markedly smaller projects than say, Halo Wars at Ensemble.

We didn’t want to go out and start pitching publishers and trying to raise money for a big game. That was a bit of a driver. But the biggest driver was, “Hey, we don’t want to sign up for another three-year slog.” It’s just tough to go through that over and over again. We were ready for something different. - Patrick Hudson

The interview is definitely worth checking out. There is also some tidbits about Hero Academy and Patrick’s thought on the App Store and mobile gaming markets. Go forth and check out Game Informer’s website!

Orcs Must Die 2 has been announced by Robot Entertainment. Here you can find a summary some of the news generated by this exciting announcement. So here we go, here is your quick round up of all the latest OMD2 news and FAQ’s!

Listen to the Robot Radio interview

To catch up on all the OMD2 news you really have to start here. This excellent interview between Robot Fan’s @radiokenny and Robot Entertainments @sixokay the interview discusses the announcement in some more detail and provides a good insight into how the game is shaping up. Some of the things discussed includes the co-op feature, change of weapons, the Sorceress as a playable character, brand new upgrade system, plus lots lots more. So tune in now for your quick OMD2 news bite! Hit play below!

 Robot Radio Interview – Orcs Must Die! 2and Hero Academy [ 12:10 ]  Play in Popup | Play

Co-op!!

This has to be one of the most exciting features of OMD2. Co-Op is something that has been heavily requested in the first game and now all those people will be getting their wish as OMD2 brings a complete Co-op experience. No longer will you have to face the mob on your own, team up with a friend and take them on together!

New campaign

OMD2 will feature a brand new campaign. Infact the campaign starts just days after we left off after the War Mage closed the rifts. Or so we thought, it seems. The campaign will feature all new levels and for the first time some out door levels. We’ll no longer be restricted to castles which should add some more interesting visuals into the mix.

New playable character - The Sorceress

Fans of the original OMD campaign may well recognise her as the “evil protagonist” in the first game. This time however it seems that despite putting the Order into disarray before she is now fighting on the good team along side the War Mage. The Sorceress will be available to play in both single player and co-op. Exciting times!

New enemies, traps and a brand new upgrade system

This new outbreak of Orc invasion has resulted in some brand new un-seen enemies to spew out from the other side. It is only suitable, of course, for players to be kitted out with a whole new set of traps and spells. A whole bunch of the favourite traps from the original OMD will be a making a return on the new game and combined with the upcoming new traps and spells players will be enjoying a fully stocked arsenal for their Orc killing rampage.

A new spell book is also on the cards plus a brand new upgrade system that completely overhauls the old 5 skull system. As mentioned inRobot Radio the new system will cater for multiple upgrades per trap and there will be new ways to earn skulls. Happy days for us!

PC Only – no XBLA

A bit of sad news for XBLA players, OMD2 will be PC only. This comes down to a number of things, particularly time and resources to make an XBLA version. Although the XBLA version of the original OMD enjoyed a good community presence it was felt the PC community was alot stronger and by devoting more time to this platform will help provide an even better experience. If you have found the controls on PC hard to use in the past, never fear, there will be support for the Xbox control pad to be plugged into the PC. More details about the XBLA support can be found on the RE.com forums.

Its coming this Summer

That’s right – it wont be long until we’re thrown back into the action in the race to climb up the leaderboards as we destroy every single Orc that dares come our way. Summer is only a few months away folks so expect to be playing this real soon!

More news at PAX

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is taking place this weekend which will be perfect for Orcs Must Die! fans as there is sure to be a whole bunch of additional information, interviews and videos. We’ll be covering it all here on REF so stay tuned! Ears to the ground, War Mages!

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Trailer

It was three years ago when we heard that one of the start ups forming out of Ensemble Studios would be Windstorm Studios. Unlike the other endeavors undertaken by ex Ensemble staff, Windstorm had one unique element about it, the studio was to be founded and run by a single person – Dusty Monk. In order to do this Dusty had to sacrifice a day job and work full time on a project that he was greatly passionate about to pursue publishing his very own video game. After all, working on your own video game as a one man band is no easy task and can only be accomplished with passion and drive. Luckily there was no shortage of passion where Dusty was concerned, he single-handedly went about commissioning freelancers to help him build his dream game.

 I’ve had the opportunity to work with some extraordinary musicians, sound designers, artists, and voice talent. And I’m extraordinarily proud of the work we accomplished together

Writes Dusty on his final blog post.

Windstorm successfully launched Atomic City Adventures (the case of the black dragon) on August 19th 2011. This was a fantastic accomplishment having spent over two years creating and designing his own truly unique game. There were hurdles along the way, initially Dusty hoped for the game to be a large-scale MMO, however there were unfortunately difficulties in securing a  publishing deal. After all, it can’t be easy to get publishers on-board working as a one man band. However this did not stop Dusty and he continued full speed ahead to launch Atomic City Adventures as a full-blown RPG.

Just over 6 months since the games launch it has been deeply unfortunate that despite all the efforts Dusty went through to produce Atomic City Adventures, it was unable to produce the sales that Dusty had hoped for.

Atomic City Adventures has never produced the kind of sales necessary to sustain itself or the company. There are a number of reasons for this, and those lessons are things I will take forward in my career. And though I still firmly believe in the franchise itself, and I believe that with enough funding, time, and effort it could be promoted and molded into the product I originally envisioned, I found that I personally simply didn’t have the time – or really the desire – to work a full-time job to earn a living, and to spend every additional waking moment working on Atomic City.

Personally I had always considered Atomic City Adventures to be a very unique game which was taking bold ideas and producing something that we haven’t seen before in the video games market. Crime busting set wildly into the future with hover bikes and flying vehicles was certainly an exciting and fun concept. I believe the game achieved its goal and the end was result was certainly a fun experience to play through. The concept certainly has legs and I do agree that if given the opportunity with funding it could be taken further into an awesome MMO project.

It is not reasonable for Dusty to invest further time into the project without additional funding and unfortunately personal reasons and balancing life’s dynamics means that Dusty will be returning to a full-time day job going forward. Dusty will be re-joining some of his Ensemble co-workers at Robot Entertainment where he’ll continue making independently published games, but now as part of a larger team. Robot will be lucky to have Dusty on board who has clearly demonstrated outstanding flair and talent crafting Atomic City from the ground up.

I wish Dusty all the best in his role at Robot Entertainment and I am sure this is not the last we will from Atomic City Adventures.

Read Dusty’s full blog post about Windstorm Studios closing

Good news for budding Hero Academy players – the brand new team to join in the fray are the Dwarves and will be hitting the academy on February 22nd! We’ll be seeing this new and exciting team in just one week!This news comes hot on the heels of the new board which is also being released on the 22nd and is available free for all players. Whatsmore, the the update is also bringing Gamecenter and leaderboards support – boom, just like that! Not to mention some balance changes are also on the cards.

Robot Entertainment has detailed some statistics about the Dwarves and describes them as “extremely crafty” and that they gain improved bonuses when placed on bonus squares. The Dwarves also feature and expertise in wide area attacks. Details about the new hero faces are as follows:

PALADIN

(Class: Fighter) – Holy warrior who can heal and revive allies, healing herself in the process.

GUNNER

(Class: Shooter) – Shooter who deals high damage to a nearby enemy. AOE damage at range.

GRENADIER

(Class: Caster) – Lobs molotovs over enemies for AOE damage. Weak melee attack.

ENGINEER

(Class: Support) – Shields a single ally/crystal. Higher bonus from premium squares.

ANNIHILATOR

(Class: Super Unit) – Deals heavy damage with AOE knockback. Direct hits weaken physical defenses.

---

All this coming next week - February 22nd!

I’m sure all Hero Academy fans will be looking forward to this exciting new update!

Expect this new board to land on your iPhones and iPods very soon!

Dusty has been hard at work over at Windstorm Studios where he has launched a brand new website design for the futuristic video game studio. The new website highlights and provides alot more detail about Atomic City Adventures including background information and character bios. If you have played the game and are interested in reading a bit more about the world of Atomic City then checking out this new website should be your first port of call.

Dusty is looking for feedback about the new site design so feel free to head over to the Atomic City Adventures facebook page and be sure to let him know your thoughts. I think its quite a snazzy design!

Check back to the site every now and then for more character and district information!

Our ambition is to position this website as a resource of fan generated content along with providing exciting competitions and interviews along with original thought and speculation about the studios endeavours. Fans can join in the Orcs Must Die! Combo leaderboard and try and gain on-site achievements for activity on the website. Anyone who wishes to help with the website is most welcome and the sign up form can be found readily under the “contribute” section.

Robot Fans launches with two episodes of Robot Radio and a brand new exclusive art piece from Chris Moffitt, one of the artists at Robot Entertainment. There is also a chance to win a prize by registering in the first 30 days. So what are you waiting for – head over to Robot Fans and register today! We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Visit Robot Fans

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As we move forward Remember ES will continue to deliver studio news from Robot and all the Ex Ensemble Studios. So don’t worry you’ll still get your fix of news right here as before. If you’re looking for even more news, articles and speculation about Robot Entertainment you’ll find that over at Robot Fans.

Popular mint maker, Mentos has recently procured the services of Graeme Devine to help them launch a new iOS game to go along with a new marketing campaign for the Mentos brand. The company certainly know how pick their game designers enlisting the help of Ex-Ensembler and now founder of GRL Games, Graeme Devine to design the game “Spider Swiper” for iOS.

The game itself is pretty simple, players just need to swipe the spiders in order to defeat them. The best swipes lead into spider swiping combos. Beware though, these spiders look incredibly realistic, so if you are scared of spiders you may like to give this one a pass! Alternatively, if you want to give those pesky spiders a piece of your mind then this app is just perfect to release your dislike! Check out the game on iTunes using the link below and enjoy swiping!

Did I mention if you beat the first spider you can get a code for a free pack of Mentos? Hello free mints!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spider-swiper-by-mentos/id494017300?ls=1&mt=8

Today marks the global release of Robot’s Game 3.0 – “Hero Academy” the light-hearted tactical strategy game for iPhone and iPods. Players choose their teams and then go head to head with their friends in “friendly” battle. The goal of the game is simple, try to destroy the opponents crystals before they destroy yours. Players make use of a number of different characters and items to achieve this goal, and the best will results will be the players who choose the right combination at the right time. Check out the latest launch trailer:

Having played a couple of games this evening I have been very impressed with the game. Starting with the basics the user interface is clean and intuitive. The art style encourages the games sense of light-hearted battle and approachability along side an equally encouraging music track. The first impressions are certainly excellent. Players can log in to the game via their existing RobotEntertainment.com accounts. No account? No problem! The sign up process for new users is incredibly easy and fast, just enter in your email address and choose a password and that’s it, you’re good to go! No pesky forms or long registrations to trawl through.

Once signed up and logged in, hitting “Play” it is then time to choose your opponent. Players can either choose a friend whos Robot ID they know, or can search randomly for an opponent. Once the opponent is decided a brief introduction screen is displayed which describes how to play the game. The instructions can seem slightly daunting at first, but not to worry. As soon as the game starts players can get help on every single item in the game by pressing the help button in the corner. The help system is very comprehensive and it is clear a lot of attention to detail has gone into providing players with all the information they need to get right into the game. During my first play through I found it took me a few goes to work out precisely what was going on, a few turns later though and I was in the know. Overall I felt it was a very good experience playing the game for a first time and learning the ropes. The game feels very refined in this regard and it is clear that Robot tried hard to make the game as approachable as possible.

As for the gameplay experience itself, its addictive, really addictive. So much so you may want to make sure your iOS device is fully charged before playing as this game is hard to put down! There is certainly a lot of thrill and excitement when you make a cunning move to out with your opponent. The asynchronous game-play particularly fuels the addictive feel to the game as you can sit down and have a number of games buzzing away with a few players all going at fast pace. If you’re ever bored and need to fill 10 minutes a game of Hero Academy is all you need. Of course if speedy games are not your preference you can always play the game at a more leisurely pace.

In terms of pricing the core game is priced at a very accessible price of FREE. This is a great price for the game as it will result in a much larger population of players and increased exposure. Payment for the game comes in the form of extra content packs such as additional teams, colours and taunts. I much prefer this payment model for mobile games. Those players who enjoy Hero Academy will no doubt look to stand out from the crowd and can purchase extra content for as little as £0.69.

Overall Hero Academy looks to be a very exciting and addictive game that you should definitely check out on the iTunes store right away. After all with the price being free what have you got to lose? Nothing!  What have you got to gain? Well.. a whole lot of fun! Check it out now using the iTunes link below! See you in-game!

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/hero-academy/id488156323?mt=8 (UK)

www.heroacademyapp.com (All other regions)

Orcs Must Die! features on this weeks Xbox Live sale. Now is a great time to tell all your friends about the need to go Orc slashin’, from just 600 MS Points! Be sure to check it out and spread the word! http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Orcs-Must-Die/ 

In other news Hero Academy is due to launch globally in the next few days. Your nickname for Hero Academy will be the same as that on your RobotEntertainment.com profile. Why not encourage your friends to sign up online so that they are ready to go into battle when the game launches for iOS devices in the next few days?

Age of Empires Online gets an update this week too. The Skirmish Hall booster developed by Gas Powered Games has gone live and allows players to create their own custom skirmish games. In a similar fashion to skirmish games on older Age titles players can control various settings like resources, difficulty and victory conditions. The Skirmash Hall is certainly been one of the most requested features the community has been looking for from Age Online and it is good to see Microsoft is listening to the community feedback and doing the Age series justice! The Skirmish hall is available for FREE for a limited time only. So I suggest opening up AOE-Online and downloading it straight away!

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Age-of-Empires-Online/