Outwitters 1.6.1 is out! Players are loving the new maps with the release of the 2nd gen maps in our previous update. Then they realized the new maps weren’t coming up in league play. Oops! This update fixes that. The new map pack should now start appearing in league matches.
On the topic of the recent Bramble buff, we’ve been listening to feedback and watching match outcomes in aggregate. With most drastic changes to unit abilities or gameplay rules, we see a slight upswing in favor of the new ability as players are typically faster at learning how to use the ability offensively than they are at defending against it. Defensive strategies tend to lag behind any metagame changes as players slowly adapt new tactics and let go of old ones that no longer work. While we do think the new Bramble is strong, we aren’t 100% sure if it is broken or a matter of the metagame lagging behind. We would like for the Bramble change to run it’s course through this weekend, and come next week we’ll look at the data and feedback and adjust from there. We do appreciate our player’s patience and support as we work towards a more balanced game!
The Outwitters 1.2 should be hitting your device in the next few hours. Here’s what you can expect in this update:
The Veggienauts Team Pack:
- Includes a new special unit, two new 1v1 maps, and a new 2v2 map.
- Free for those who purchased the über pack!
Also New:
- Base avatars are available in the store. You can change them in your profile.
- Player 2 now starts with 8 wits to counter the advantage of going first.
- You now get a bonus wit for each enemy you kill.
- Spawn menus have become prettier.
Fixes:
- Mobi shows up in replays when used within the fog of war.
- Fixed issue with local data cache growing to very large sizes.
- Fixed issue with re-installing causing users to be locked out of on-going games.
- Other numerous bugs and performance improvements.
We’ve tested these changes with a small group of beta testers, and hit a point where we’re confident enough to release it into the wild. We’ll be closely monitoring the live server, and making adjustments if something comes up balance-wise with the Veggienauts or any of the new gameplay changes.
What’s Next?
We’ve got another update already pretty far in the pipeline that’ll bring iPhone 5 native resolution support.
Some of you may have heard the news that AGON is shutting down operations at the end of June. If you haven’t, well… AGON is shutting down operations at the end of June. Adam has selected this inspirational video to help ease the transition.
To make sure Tilt to Live doesn’t run into any problems, we’re disabling AGON online connectivity from our game and using Game Center exclusively for global leaderboards and achievements. What does this mean for those that are living under a rock and don’t have internet connectivity on their devices? It shouldn’t mean much since they can’t update anyway, or read this post for that matter. Your offline highscores will still be stored locally and you’ll be able to see your highest scores on the gametype select screen. When you tap on ‘Awards’ you will also still be able to see which awards you’ve unlocked and which ones are left to pursue.
If you’re worried about losing highscores or achievements, I’d recommend setting up a Game Center account (if you haven’t already) and making sure that Game Center is enabled in Tilt to Live’s options menu. This allows the game to save awards and highscores to Apple’s Game Center servers, so you’ll be able to restore them easily even between re-installs, or across devices.
We’re working on pushing an update out for Tilt to Live first, followed by Tilt to Live HD, and then a Lite update. Should be submitted sometime next week.
Adam’s Picks (Art/Writing)
Consoles continue to hold my attention, primarily. I’m currently working on Darksiders, which Alex got me for my bday. It plays like God of War meets Zelda meets Devil May Cry, but it’s not nearly as good as any of them. That said, the places it’s taken me so far are enthralling. Last night I journeyed into a desert of ash crawling with giant Tremors monsters, and my next stop is a castle made of spiderwebs. I don’t care how boring the game has been to play, I can’t NOT get excited about a castle made of spiderwebs.
Freaking Inkies (also in HD):
Yes, this game is old as hell. I think it came out around the time TtL debuted a year ago. It’s a tilt-based shooter with a lot of personality, and the artist in me appreciates the color mixing mechanic. The child in me appreciates the sound effects.
Alex’s Picks (Codesmith)
Disc Drivin’ (Lite):
I felt a bit late to the party on this one as a lot of fellow devs have been playing this game a bit longer than I have (and it shows). The game is a turn-based racing game where you fling discs around several courses. The description sounded odd to me at first, but once I understood how it worked it seems like a brilliant idea perfectly suited for the mobile device. I found that while it has a rather addictive quality to it, it isn’t as intrusive as a game that requires your 100% attention. Taking a turn in Disc Drivin’ is only a few seconds and you go on about your business. Locally you can play up to 8 players, but online is limited to 4. One of the few multiplayer games that you can even get your non-gamer friends really into.
I was just notified by a friend of a rather cool video that I just had to share. Someone built a tilt motion controller for the iPhone and plans on mounting it to a camera to allow a robot to play accelerometer based games. This has been done before with Guitar Hero, but the cool thing is that they were using Tilt to Live to test the controller! Check out the video below and the short article here.
This looks to be shaping up to be a really cool project. You can read more about it on Shane Wighton’s blog along with some other neat stuff.
2010 Best App Ever Awards
The new year has begun, but we’re still feeling the tug of 2010! Specifically, the 2010 Best App Ever Awards are in full swing, and Tilt to Live has been nominated in several categories. We need your votes to win! You can place your vote anytime before January 25, 2010. The winners in each category will be announced at the 2011 Macworld Expo! So go vote, tell your friends to vote, tweet it, and post on Facebook! Here are the categories for which Tilt to Live has been nominated. Just follow the links to vote:
Best Game Controls (Tilt to Live)
Best Game Controls (Tilt to Live HD)
To have gotten so many nominations is really unexpected. Let’s see if the Tilt to Live community can make their voices heard! If we don’t win, that’s okay. We’ll still make games for you.
OpenFeint Fire Sale
In case your voting finger is still itching, Tilt to Live is also up for a Fire Sale promotion on OpenFeint’s Game Channel. I don’t have a witty reference to Die Hard at the moment, so I’ll leave that to the professionals. Tired of your friend complaining that Tilt to Live costs $2.99? (Because you already have it, right?) Here’s your chance to do something about it. If we have at least 2,000 votes by tomorrow, Tilt to Live will go on sale for the weekend for 99¢. The power, is YOURS! *Fades to black*
2010 was an amazing year and a great start for us! Tilt to Live being our debut game on the app store took us further than we would have imagined. Going from a part-time hobby to a full time career has been nothing short of amazing over this past year. We released Tilt to Live back in late February and the support has been phenomenal! We’d like to thank our fans for their support and just being awesome! Below I wanted to share with you some of the places Tilt to Live came up in conversation during all the ‘end of the year/best games of 2010′ ruckus.
End of Year Accolades
We were selected as the iPhone Game of The Year for 2010 by AppAdvice. We’re flattered! Thanks again so much to the guys and gals over at AppAdvice!
Being selected as one of the top 5 best casual iphone games of the year on Touch Arcade was a great achievement!
We were nominated as Best Quick Fix mobile game of 2010 by IGN. It was an honor to be nominated among such games as Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja, Pix’n Love Rush, and Plants vs Zombies
We got an honorable mention over at midlife gamer for Game of the Year. Heavy Rain beating us out…hah. Having screenshots of the two games side-by-side is rather mind blowing. OUR ARROW IS THE MOST REALISTIC ARROW EVER RENDERED ON A TWO DIMENSIONAL SCREEN.
We got runner-up in the ‘Biggest Surprise’ category over at touchgen.net.
Back in November we were inducted into the App Hall of Fame.
That was one helluva year 
. Here’s to keeping it up for 2011!
We just submitted Tilt to Live HD with Game Center to Apple. It should be out in the next week or so. So what’s changed in this update for HD?
What’s New:
- Game Center Leaderboards
- Game Center Achievements
- Multitasking support
What’s fixed:
- Fixed bug that kept scores/awards from uploading to GameCenter if app was minimized during gameplay
- Fixed bug that caused game not to spawn enemies when in weak wi-fi or 3G signal (weird, I know)
- Fixed issues with disappearing vortexes, caused when multiple vortexes were on screen
What’s improved:
- Tweaked steam effects in Frostbite mode
And that’s that! The Viva la Turret expansion is still coming to the iPad sometime in January. So see you all in 2011! Hope you have a Happy New Year!
This video that was in a comments thread for one of our posts and I wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention. The Gauntleteer achievement requires players to play survive 10 minutes of Gauntlet, and Zago-ITA pulled off one of the hardest achievements in Tilt to Live without losing a single life. This guy makes it look easy . He knows how to tilt to live.
It is a 10 minute video, so if you want to see some of the highlights click here instead.
Hats off to Zago-ITA!
If you haven’t checked your iPhone app store updates lately, you may want to give it a check soon. Tilt to Live 1.5 is finally out. What’s new?
- Game Center Leaderboards – compete with your friends on daily and weekly leaderboards
- Game Center Achievements – bragging rights
- “Retina Display” graphics – High-res graphics for those with high-res devices
- Bug fixes carrying over from Tilt to Live HD
What is that you say? Where are the new weapons or gametypes? Well, the holiday season is full of miracles. See you then.