ravenmark
Latest
Witching Hour adds multiplayer into Ravenmark Mercenaries
Last year, Witching Hour Studios (a team that's grown to about eight people now) released Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion, a turn-based strategy title that felt way bigger than the little iPhone's screen it played on. The gameplay is complex (there are lots of units to control and every unit counters and is countered by another), but it's also very impressive, featuring big-scale battles and a story to match. Ever since Ravenmark arrived, fans have been clamoring for multiplayer, and last week at GDC I met up with Witching Hour to see Ravenmark: Mercenaries, a new entry in the series that adds the ability to play against other humans, along with lots of other very impressive features. The multiplayer is obviously the headliner here. The Witching Hour guys say the first game was really "stepping blocks" leading up to a multiplayer game, so obviously it was front and center when they started work on this one. It plays out just like the standard Ravenmark match, with players getting to field two different armies, and taking turns two at a time, passing them back and forth. As the guys showed me during the GDC meeting, moves are made almost simultaneously asychronously, and you can rewatch turns as much as you like to see how the battle is going down. In addition to the actual battles, each player gets to make their own battle standard flag, which is then carried by an actual unit in the multiplayer skirmishes. That's a fun touch -- not only does it provide a bit of customization, but it adds strategy as well, as the battle standard carrier conveys a number of extra powers and benefits (while he's alive, at least). In addition to the multiplayer options, there's also another long singleplayer campaign to play through, and units can now be leveled up. Players can also gain commander levels, which add new abilities to the mix, and give player commanders a little bit of personality ("Cold-blooded" or "hot-headed" are two of the commander attributes players can earn). And if the full campaign and all of the multiplayer isn't enough strategic battling for you, there will also be "contracts" to play out, which are daily skirmishes available against a certain enemy. Finally, Witching Hour is planning to deliver this content in a few different ways. Much of the buzz around mobile titles these days says that free-to-play games are the way to go, but that's not what Witching Hour found with Ravenmark. After releasing the first game both as a full package for a premium price of $9.99, and a free-to-play version with episodic content, the team found that more users wanted to simply go for the whole-package premium version. In fact, the team says they even saw a lot of users downloading the free version, and then buying the full version rather than picking up all of the same content episodically. So the same deal will probably be available with Mercenaries. In addition to a standard premium game, the team is also thinking about offering a "collector's edition" version, with extra content for an even higher price. And they're convinced that their biggest fans will be willing to pay for it, just because their most dedicated fans love the game so much. We'll have to see how that plays out. Ravenmark is a very impressive series, and Mercenaries looks like a more than worthy addition to Witching Hour's work so far. It is expected to be ready for purchase sometime this summer.
Daily iPhone App: Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion
Turn-based strategy warfare is a genre that's surprisingly easy to come by on iOS -- there are a lot of games out there that let you pit various forces against each other in a turn-based battle. But it is hard to come by a really great example of one of these on the App Store, and fortunately Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion does it right. This is the first game from a company called Witching Hour Studios, and as their website says, the title shows that they're trying "not so much to make a quick buck," but to actually set up a story and a world that feels epic even on the iPhone's little screen. Ravenmark feels exactly that. The story and lore feel super solid, and the tactical gameplay uses a sort of expanded rock/paper/scissors system that plays well and offers up all sorts of engagements to command. Various troop types do more damage to others (ranged defeats infantry, for example, but ranged can be beaten by cavalry), and troops can be joined up into sets of one, two, or three, each with their own abilities and special functions. If you've never played a turn-based strategy game, this one might get you into it. It's relatively simple, though obviously can get more complex over time (and there's plenty of depth here to explore over 15 missions, if you do want to get into the nitty gritty of tactics). The graphics are clean and smart, and while the interface does kind of boil down to a series of menus, it's still simple enough that it's easy to direct your troops to where they need to go. There's no RPG elements, really, other than an really deep ongoing story, but this game doesn't profess to be an RPG, so it works just fine (for now -- it definitely feels like there are more games to be set in this world). In fact, the only issue with Ravenmark is that it is so short, and it's constrained only to the small screen for now. But both of those issues are set to be fixed with a free update by Christmas (with new content and a universal version), so if you're interested in either dipping your toe into turn-based tactical strategy, or just really want to play a very well-done and polished example of the genre, this one's for you. It's available right now for US$2.99.
