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'Orcs Must Die' developers are plotting to enter eSports
Competitive online games are a rapidly growing industry, driven by the explosive popularity of eSports. Titles like League of Legends, Dota 2, Call of Duty and Overwatch dominate the professional gaming scene, and studios across the globe are implementing competitive modes in their games. Robot Entertainment, the studio behind the tower defense series Orcs Must Die, is no different. "I can't tell you everything, obviously, but we're always working on some maybe head-to-head competitive style gameplay with this," Orcs Must Die Unchained designer Jerome Jones says. "We have to figure out the right way to do it. ... We'll have to figure out our little niche, but we are definitely working on those types of things."
Hero Academy Dwarves update coming Feb 22, for $1.99
Hero Academy has fallen a bit out of my gaming attention lately (truth be told, Triple Town is stealing most of my iOS gaming time these days, probably more than is healthy), but it's still an excellent free-to-play title, and I still have about 15 games going on at any given moment. Currently, the turn-based strategy multiplayer title boasts two different teams, the Humans and the Dark Elves, but later this month the game is getting a third team to play with: The Dwarves. The new race will go in a steampunk direction, with rocket launchers and firearms, and will not only specialize in area-of-effect attacks, but gain nice bonuses from the on-board power-ups. The Dwarves will be available via an in-app purchase of $1.99. A few players have complained about the game's balance, saying that the Dark Elves seemed slightly more powerful than the core Human fighters, and that Robot Entertainment was just trying to sell in-app purchases for a more powerful team. And while I'm sure we'll see that argument again, I'm also sure Robot Entertainment is trying as best they can to balance the teams out. Robot also says that it's working on making sure the title doesn't eat up the iPhone's battery any more than any other games, so we might see some performance updates in this release as well. Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements should also be coming with this release, but there's no mention of a universal build, so iPad users will have to wait on that one. The new update should be out on February 22.
Daily iPhone App: Hero Academy
Honestly, I'm not very good at Hero Academy. It's a deep game, slow to develop (asychronous multiplayer mode dictates the pace) and tough to learn. Still, I've enjoyed it. It's the first iOS title from Robot Entertainment, the company behind the Steam and console hit Orcs Must Die! (In fact, most of Robot's developers came from the old Ensemble Studios camp that made Halo Wars and Age of Empires). The game's both casual and tactical. You are given a certain number of characters or power-ups to play with per turn, and you can use your limited action points to do things like deploy soldiers on the grid-based battlefield, power them up with more attack or defense, move them around, and of course attack the enemy soldiers. Both teams have gems on the battlefield in different places, and the goal is to destroy the enemy's gems while defending your own. The game's depth comes from the various classes. Warriors, mages, archers, priests, and rogues offer several different characters to play with, each with unique abilities and specs. Archers move fast and strike quickly, but go down easily. A priest can hang back and heal others, keeping them in the game. Unfortunately, the game doesn't exactly explain all of this very well, but Robot's working on telling players how it all works, including with a tips video like this. My biggest complaining with Hero Academy is the game's ads. Robot uses a freemium model, which is fine, as you can spend money on in-app purchases for more teams to play with, extra custom colors, or completely optional "taunts" you can send at opponents. Some players have had issue with the in-app purchases, claiming that they're unbalanced, but that's actually not true. Robot's made sure that spending money all goes towards optional customization, not anything that affects gameplay. The ads, however, are a problem for sure. If you don't buy the second team, you're left with very distracting ads in the game menus. Plus, you're forced to watch ads on every turn you play. If, like me, you're playing about 15 or 20 games at a time, that's a lot of really annoying ads to watch. I ended up buying the second team just to get rid of them, which was actually the wrong thing to do. I probably shouldn't have rewarded Robot for annoying me so much. I also wish the title had used Game Center for its login instead of Robot's own clunky system. But despite all of that frustration and the confusion over how the game itself plays, I will say that there is a really nice, well-made game here once you get it. The turn-based battles offer up an excellent mix of deep strategy in very casual and easy-to-control bites, and the game's balanced enough that you can turn the tide of a close battle with some clever moves. Hopefully Robot will work out all of the issues with the game, and balance out those in-app purchases and ads to a point where they support the title instead of overwhelming it. The bonus, of course, is that Hero Academy is a free download, available right now.
