Orcs Must Die – new video and screen shots revealed with more to come!
Robot Entertainment has today unveiled a new Orcs Must Die video and a whole bunch of new screenshots. The latest video looks at the Arrow Wall trap and is the first in a number of upcoming videos to demonstrate other traps before the game launches this Summer. The arrow wall can be placed on most walls in each level and fires arrows towards the Orcs as they go past. These arrow walls are perfect to help reduce the size of a large wave of Orcs when they come charging towards you. Place an arrow trap on both sides of a corridor wall and you have a very nice double whammy affect!
Wall arrows *and* tar pits – now that’s painful!
Looks like some demon like Orcs can take to the air!
Check out the video and new screenshots of the game below. No mercy is shown for the Orcs, so if Orc based violence is not your thing – you best turn away now. Otherwise, take a look and prepare yourself for more new content next week as there will be weekly video updates served up over at RobotEntertainment.com !
Don’t crossbow me, bro! Plus more AOE-O animations from Chazbot
Following up on the community Orcs One Liners where Robot Entertainment invited members of the community to send in their most interesting and humorous one liners as Orcs were sent to their demise has now come to a close. A whole bunch of entries were submitted and one entry was picked out above the rest. The winning entry of the competition is “Don’t crossbow me, bro!“. I think that’s a very good choice and will definitely be amusing to hear in game! Robot are also going to include some other submissions in game too. So if you submitted your one liner you’ll have to keep your ears open to see if it appears in the game!Robot are keen to keep the community content rolling – I wonder whats next for Orcs Must Die?
Meanwhile, why not take a look at Part 4 of Charles Tinney’s AOE-O animation blog? This time we have hippikons, camel riders and war elephants (one of my favourite in-game units!). Check out the latest blog right here:
http://chazamation.com/blog/2011/04/25/age-of-empires-online-animations-part-4-mount-up/
Bruce Shelley talks about the evolution of social gaming. Plus more AOE-O animations and Robot swag!
Recently the legendary Bruce Shelley has been in talks with Gamasutra along with Brian Reynolds another industry veteran about their roles at Zynga in the social gaming space. Brian Reynolds before joining Zynga worked at Big Huge Games which collaborated with Ensemble Studios on the Age of Empires 3 Asian Dynasties expansion. Bruce and Brian had also worked closely with each other in the past on Sid Meier’s civilisation games. Now they are both re-united again at Zynga where is has become clear that the company is hiring industry veterans to push their gaming business forward.
When talking to Gamasutra Bruce detailed how he was recommended to join after the company was looking for designers from the “Sid Meier School of Design” era.
Can you explain how you interact with Zynga and how you ended up with the consultancy gig?
Bruce Shelley: Well, Brian talked to me about how [Zynga] would like to have more people from the “Sid Meier School of Design” to help with the gameplay of the games, and not worry about any aspect except how the games play. So I’ve been working with a couple of Zynga’s external studios.
Basically I’m assigned to work with the external studios, the ones that are not in San Francisco; they have something like five or six studios around the country, and I work with a couple of those. I’m probably going to be plugging into one of those for most of my work for maybe the next year — I’m not sure — and try to make one really good game, to make something really good.
So I’m another design voice. In this case, the studio there, they see me as a person with experience, who can help with young designers. Also they want to assign parts of the game to me to be in charge of, at least for awhile. Most studios have a creative director and a lead designer, and maybe a product manager, and sometimes they all have different ideas about something. So in this case, they see me as another voice, and a voice of experience, that can help them arbitrate their decision making.
No doubt Zynga recognised the talent of designers like Bruce and Brian after they have both helped formed highly respected game studios in the past. However moving from traditional types of games into the social arena brings about a whole bunch of change in dynamics:
And Bruce, how has it been? You’re aiding them and they’re learning from you. What are you learning from them, as someone that’s a long time veteran of the industry?
BS: I’m learning about the social networking space, the way the “social” works. I mean, we never concern ourselves much with social interaction other than multiplayer, you know? Like how do you matchmake, can you get into a game, can you chat? And that was the extent of it. But the idea of connecting, and helping each other out in the play of the game, and also reaching an audience we never got to before, I think, [is what I’m learning].
This is a big space of people who are playing games and not paying. … The idea of giving them really interesting games — to the point that they’re actually willing to pay something — that’s kind of interesting to me.
I think I’m learning about this whole new area of gaming. This rapid iteration is pretty amazing, and to have the data come back — we never had that… You had to finish your project and work on it for years before you started getting some meaningful data.
One of the big challenges for social games on platforms like Facebook and mobile games is getting people hooked and willing to keep playing after their first impressions with the game. In the past at Ensemble one of the most important aspects of good game design talked about by Bruce was making the first 15 minutes as fun an possible. This 15 minute window is probably still true today for traditional PC and Console games, but much less so about social games. The first impression window for a social game in Facebook might be as small as just a few minutes, mostly because it is so easily to back out of a game if the first impression doesnt draw a user in.
BS: With Age, we thought that the game had to have a great first 15 minutes to get the people engaged and hold ’em. And in social network it’s called the “first time user experience.” And it’s critical.
BR: And now it’s like the first 15 seconds and the first minute — it’s the golden minute. You don’t have 15 minutes! [laughs]
Its going to be interesting to see what these industry luminaries can achieve with social gaming at Zynga. Can Sid Mierers iterative design approach be applied in the same way to create engaging user experiences? Only time will tell and I look forward to seeing some of the games that Bruce and Brian work on at Zynga in the future.
For the full article check out this link at Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6349/the_strategic_evolution_of_social_.php
More Age of Empires Online animations with Chazbot
Over at Chazamation the third blog in the AOE-O animation series by Charles Tinney is now online. This time looking at Hopolites and Axemen – two units from each of the current civilisations the Greeks and the Egyptians. The blog takes us through all animations from idle to death! Check that out here: http://chazamation.com/blog/2011/04/22/age-of-empires-online-animations-part-3-mr-hoppy-and-the-axeman/
Robot Entertainment-ware for your wardrobe!
Robot Entertainment have launched an online merchandise and T-shirt store for all things Robot over at Store Envy. Now you can kit yourself out with all the latest Robot Entertainment inspired wares such as T-Shirts, buttons and cup holders. Show your support for Robot and the need for the death of all Orcs by wearing this T-shirt available for just $17 excluding shipping on the store:
Spread the word.. the Orcs Must Die!
Robot merch can be shipped pretty much anywhere in the world so head over to http://robotentertainment.storenvy.com/ and pick up some swag!
GRL Games announces four brand new games in development
Graeme Devine, the man behind GRL games who has recently released Clandestiny for Mac OS and Full Deck Solitaire has announced that GRL have four other game ideas in the pipeline. First up are two new ideas for the Full Deck series. We have Full Deck Poker and Full Deck Domino’s on the way for Mac OS X. These games will no doubt continue the winning formula of Full Deck Solitaire.
The other projects Graeme is working on at GRL include “Super Unicorn” and “G7”
Super Unicorn
Now this is an interesting video game concept. Take a look at how Graeme described it when talking to Gamasutra last week:
Currently Devine is developing an iPad game called Super Unicorn Puzzler to answer this question. He admits this “is a terrible game,” at its core, but after a brief play session, the crappy puzzler is replaced with a NASA scientist on the moon, who asks you to help her, he explained.
As soon as you do help, though, agents are dispatched to your iPad’s GPS location. “You have to physically take the iPad and move or the game is over,” Devine said. The game will force the player to go outside, to go to an Apple Store and access its wifi network, and more.
Certainly not your average iPad game! This unique idea will involve you as a player feeling as though you are physically going to look for something and move places while playing the game. So if you are being tracked down by in-game agents you are going to physically have to move your iPad into another location! I don’t think this is something that has been truly done before in a video game so it is a very interesting concept indeed. This will definitely be a project to watch as it develops.
Take a look at the full Gamasutra article for more information about Super Unicorn and other thoughts Graeme has about drawing players into a story. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34141/
G7
This project has been less talked about. The GRL games website states that this is a game targeted to teenagers and involves extending the turn based play of the Full Deck games into a social experience. Again, this sounds like an interesting and unique concept. Methinks Graeme has a many ideas in his mind waiting to be put to paper. (Or should that be code and art!)
Very much looking forward to hearing more about these projects. Check out the GRL Games blog for more details about the grand plan and see if you can decipher exactly what gameplay G7 might involve!
http://www.grlgames.net/GRL/blog/Entries/2011/4/19_The_Plan.html
Beta NDA lifted on Age of Empires Online
Microsoft Game Studios have today removed the non disclosure agreement for current beta testers of Age of Empires Online. This means current beta users are now free to discuss the game openly with the public. In light of this the forums over at www.ageofempiresonline.com are now merged with there being no separate beta section any more. There is no news of yet as to whether this change will result in a public beta but keep your eyes peeled for any possible news.
This news can only mean the development is getting closer to launch. After Robot Entertainment completed work on the game in February, Gas Powered Games took over as lead developers to complete the final polish and features. With the NDA lifted you can be sure to expect more AOE-O previews and insights from the existing beta players. Head over to www.ageofempiesonline.com now and get involved in the discussion!
Orcs Must Die community one liners. Plus crocodiles and lions!
Robot Entertainment has lifted the lid on their latest community effort – ‘Orcs One Liners’. This is a community competition whereby community members can come up with amusing and witty one liners for the soon-to-be-killed Orcs. The best one liners will be chosen by Robot Entertainment on Monday next week (April 25th). The winning one liner will then be added to the final production version of the game for all the world to hear! So if you think you have what it takes to come up with an awesome Orc based one liner then head on over to the Orcs Must Die facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/OMDGame and then click on “Community One Liners”.
If you are in need of inspiration check out the sample clips from existing one liners on the facebook page. When you have your lightbulb moment just fill out your one liner on the Facebook page. Simples! Just remember to make sure your one liner is 100% original otherwise it wont be valid for selection. Also, you’ll need to act reasonably fast as the competition closes this Friday 22nd April. – So thinking caps on people!
With community bots in full swing this is probably just the start of a string of Orcs Must Die community efforts before the game launches, exciting times! Good luck with your entries to this competition!
In other news – the Charles Tinney the Chazbot of Chazamation has uploaded his latest Age of Empires Online art blogs. This time looking at the animations for the Crocodile and the Lion. These are some humours animation models and they look even better in-game! Check out his latest blog here:
Charles Tinney begins Age of Empires Online animation blogs
Charles Tinney an animator at the late Ensemble Studios who worked on Halo Wars has recently started a blog about his awesome animation work with Age of Empires Online. Charles or “chazbot” Tinney has been taking care of most of the animation on AOE-O while the game was developed at Robot Entertainment.
My initial role, once the art style was finalized, was to concept and visualize the animation style that best complimented the game’s art direction. It was great pulling reference from Looney Tunes and old Disney shorts. Through animation reference, exploration, pushing, pulling, trial, error, I eventually hit a style that was wacky and exaggerated in some circumstances, and kind of an overly animated subtlety for most cases; both with an overall defined timing and spacing that melded the extreme and subtle together
If you are a member of the Age of Empires Online beta community then you will already know about the quality of animations in the game. My personal favourite has to be the elephant. Unfortunetly, due to NDA restrictions I cant show you the elephant here, but it does have a most amusing set of animations :). Oh, the crocodiles are pretty awesome too.
If you dont have access to the AOE-O beta just yet, dont panic, you can check out some of Chazbot’s work by checking out his personal blog at:
http://chazamation.com/blog/2011/04/14/age-of-empires-animations-part-1-deer/
First up is the animation set for the deer, and there will be more forthcoming as more parts are added. These blogs arent on the Robot Entertainment website, so keep checking back. Remember ES will keep you upto date on new postings!
If you’re wondering about what animations Chazbot has done in the past his website as a wide portfolio spanning work on games like Halo Wars to some work on TV shows like Jimmy Neutron and even a feature film called “Ant Bully” – impressive! Check all these out here:
http://chuck-o-rama.com/animation.html
Gamespot talks to Robot on Orcs Must Die – franchise planned
Gamespot have recently had a phone interview with Robot Entertainment’s CEO Patrick Hudson, COO Harter Ryan and Lead Producer on OMD – Chris Rippy. The Gamespot article is jam packed with useful Orcs Must Die information plus a whole lot of information about the future direction of Robot Entertainment. One of the most interesting things that has been touched on is the idea that “Must Die” could become a franchise for Robot if the game is a big enough success. You may have noticed that “Orcs” is in the colour green on the logo above.. that could easily be replaced with “Sheep Must Die” or “Kittens Must Die” should Robot decide to take that path. (Obviously those names are fictional!)
This is one article you are going to want to read fully! Its quite a long one, its well worth the full read but here are my Top 3 highlights:
GameSpot: Orcs Must Die is the first original game from Robot. What’s the 30-second elevator pitch for this game?
Harter Ryan: Sure. Orcs Must Die is an innovative game that’s set in third-person perspective, and it’s a mix between tower-defense and a third-person shooter. Basically you’re a war mage who’s defending a castle from orcs who want to invade it and go through the hallways and jump into a glowing blue ball called a rift. There’s a story around it–it’s a single-player game–but essentially you’re going to be using a series of traps, spells. and weapons. As the orcs invade in waves, you’ll be able to stop them and kill them, hence the title.
GS: So, this is obviously a pretty big departure from Age of Empires. What led you to this game after working on that franchise for so long?
PH: We were inside Microsoft for so long–most of the people here came from Ensemble Studios–we’ve hired some fresh blood since then. And we were always prototyping something different outside of the [real-time strategy] realm and especially outside of Age of Empires and Halo Wars. There’s been a lot of pent-up creative energy in this group of folks for a really long time, so getting independent finally allowed us to go and pursue some of these ideas. We’ve had guys in here that have been making more or less the same franchise for a dozen or 14 years and just [have] a strong desire to do some different things.
GS: You mentioned that you were working on Age of Empires Online before this, and then Orcs Must Die is a smaller downloadable game. Which route do you think your studio will take in the future?
PH: We’ll do a little bit of both. Age of Empires Online was a shorter schedule for us, we worked on that for 24 months and if you look back at some of our previous games, they were as long as 36 months or longer. So, there’s certainly a desire internally to work on shorter development cycles. We’d like to be shipping a game at least once a year no matter the platform. We will ship on a variety of platforms. But I think we’ll do a little bit of both. It really does depend on kind of where the creative juices are in the company, what people are excited to pursue, and what we think we have the chops internally to pull off, both development-wise and just from a financial risk standpoint.
Right now, Orcs Must Die is the bulk of our effort as we try to make the final push to get this out. But we have two other games in the works also. One is quite small, even much smaller than Orcs Must Die, and one is significantly larger than Orcs Must Die. And then just getting to the point where we can balance those levels of development efforts is what we’re working through right now. But, we don’t have a single-minded mantra of, “Hey, we’re going to go do this type of game at this type of size and distribution point.”
That’s the Remember ES Top 3 highlights. Be sure to read the full article on the link below. Remember ES will be delving into some analysis of this interview soon, plus some analysis of some things to come out of the Community Summit. Be on the look-out for Part 4 of the Orcs Must Die preview soon.
For now, grab a refreshing drink and sit comfortably and have a read through this very detailed and insightful interview at Gamespot:
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/orcsmustdie/news.html?sid=6307272
Orcs Must Die preview part 3 – Art & Design
In part 3 of the Remember ES Orcs Must Die preview we look at the art style and UI design of OMD. Any Ensemble fan will quickly realise that Orcs is something very different compared to games developed at the late Ensemble Studios where many employees of Robot Entertainment have migrated from post closure. Not only is Orcs not an RTS, the game is also based off a different engine than the one used for Age games in the past. The result of this is a completely new art style and user interface, not to mention the new genre of game of course!
Art Style
Lets take a look at the art style first. With Orcs Must Die, Robot are going for a casual art design, almost cartoony in some places but not to the same level as say Age of Empires Online. The benefit of having a casual art design is that animations and character features can be more pronounced, this gives the Orcs a sense of personality (mindless personality that is!) and the traps are clear and obvious. The art style helps make the game approachable and it is easy to pick up and learn about which traps do what and which elements of the landscape can be used against the Orcs.
The physics engine in the game is good, allowing players to interact with the environment such as knocking down chandeliers, releasing huge wooden logs or throwing Orcs into pools of lava. The art style helps make it clear as to which types of level objects can be used in battle. Having these types of interactions available means you’ll always be looking closely at each level before you start as you discover new and interesting ways to kill Orcs using the landscape.
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
Charecter models are detailed as are the textures and lighting which help set the mood. The War Mage went through a number of design iterations but I think Robot ended up choosing a winner on the final character design:
A number of character design ideas.
As Orcs are slain points and combos pop up onto the screen in a almost comic book like fashion:
In summary I think Robot did a great job with the art style, promoting usability and eye catching graphics. An appealing art style definitely helps make the game more enjoyable to play overall.
Design
The levels we played as part of the Robot Community Summit were good and well designed. From a studio specialising in the strategy genre the result is Orcs levels crafted with strategic elements such choke points, environment traps, elevation advantage etc. Players who prefer to take out Orcs utilising the War Mages own weaponry can position themselves in different areas of each level to determine which spot is most effective. A mini map is available in the top right corner showing the location of Orcs and the number of waves remaining. The mini-map is useful to see just in case an Orc manages to sneak past you un-noticed (especially those pesky small speedy Orcs!)
The mini map shows the location of Orcs, yourself and the rift. Dont let any Orcs reach the rift!
The typical overall UI looks like the below screen shot. This shows how the UI looks on a mid-game level and shows the features you would expect to see on a typical level:
(Click to enlarge)
The first thing which sprung to mind with alot of people at the community summit was that the game’s UI and overall art style looks very similar to the kind of design and style used in World of Warcraft. Personally, I havnt played World of Warcraft myself, but I have seen it in action and yes the overall design and style looks slightly similar. This is by no means a bad thing, after all the WoW style is very much a tried and tested formula! For a quick comparison and similarity check you can play spot the difference below:
| Orcs Must Die | World of Warcraft |
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It is important to note however that the UI design we see today may not be the same design that we see at launch. After all, look how different the Halo Wars development screenshots differed to the production version of the game:
| Halo Wars development UI | Halo Wars production UI |
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As development of Orcs continues it is very possible that aspects of the UI change between now and the version that ships. At the moment as it stands I found the UI to be very functional everything a player needed to see was in the right place and was easy to get to. Not much clicking takes place on the UI as weapons, magic and traps can be selected using the keyboard keys or mouse wheel. Players primarily use the mouse to set down traps or click objects in the landscape, such as releasing further traps onto the Orcs.
Trap placement with the mouse was a breeze, just select the trap and players move thier mouse over a location where they want the trap to be placed. If the area goes green its good to go, if the area shows red you need to find an alternate place to put the trap. Translucent boxes show clearly where the trap will be placed and how big the trap is in scale:
Showing the correct placement of a trap
Right now the game is completely playable in its current form. Perhaps a small few tweaks are needed here and there but I feel Robot have a good core structure to make a great game. They have already achieved gameplay which is truly pick up and play. At the community summit we had no lengthy tutorials, we just sat down and everyone knew how to get stuck in the game after just a few minutes of getting to grips with the controls. People will feel right at home playing Orcs Must Die, theres no complicated controls, no complicated game play manual, just choose your traps and weapons and your good to go. As players get to the later levels they will really start thinking about tactics in order to get the best scores. Robot have promised later levels to ramp up the difficulty introducing two more rifts and Orc flows.
Thats about all for Part 3, and there is still more exciting Orcs coverage to come. For all the latest Orcs news be sure to keep following @Remember_ES on Twitter and the new @OrcsMustDie twitter feed where all the latest news about Orcs is posted.
Until next time.. don’t be afraid of the Orcs!
GRL Games announces Full Deck Poker Solitaire
Continuing with the “Full Deck” theme comes poker as a variation of GRL’s existing popular game Full Deck Solitaire. The poker version of the game is a full separate release and offers a poker twist to solitaire where players can line up poker hands in the 25 squares horizontally and vertically to score points based on the poker hands arranged. Much like the first game this Full Deck features the same crisp graphics with a set of stunning photos pre-loaded. Players can challenge their friends using the Game Center along with leader boards and achievements for the competitive.
The game is being released for iPad so if you have one of those be sure to zip over to the App Store to download. Its completely free so theres no reason not to! Check out some screenshots below and the official launch text for the game.
GRL Games description:
Full Deck Poker Solitaire is a poker twist on classic solitaire. Line up poker hands in the 25 squares horizontally and vertically to score points based on the poker hands you arrange! Full Deck Poker Solitaire has six variations to keep your mind sharp and wits delighted.
One fantastic feature allows you to challenge your friends to try and beat your hand at the same game! Play against any of your Game Center friends and challenge them to beat your best score! You can compare the results side by side once the challenge is complete and see how they played the same cards you played.
– Switcheroo, the most popular game at GRL headquarters, this game lets you swap cards around on the board. It’s poker sudoku!
– Lightning, play all cards in 60 seconds or less.
– 120, play all cards in 120 seconds or less.
– Unlimited, you have unlimited time to play all the cards.
– Connected, the cards you place must be touching a previously played card.
– Freecell, adds solitaire’s Freecell spare slots to the board to help you plan.
– Leaderboards
– AchievementsFrom the makers of Full Deck Solitaire!
Screenshots
Download FREE for iPad
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/full-deck-poker-solitaire/id427067851?mt=8#
