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.

Ryan Rigney (author of Buttonless, which featured our first game Tilt to Live) came to us a few weeks ago with praise for Outwitters’ bold Free to Play model. No gold or extra lives being sold, just good wholesome content like I used to buy when I was a boy. “So how’s that working out for you?” he asked.

Not great.

We figured we’d share our numbers so other small studios might make a better decision than we did. With 2% of 500,000 users buying something in your app, you need them to spend an average of $30 dollars each to break even on a $300,000 game (salaries for 2 people for 1.75 years, plus company overhead, custom sound, and half a year’s server costs). We should have done that math, and not overestimated the number of downloads “free” would attract. Consumables also weren’t a good fit for a competitive multiplayer game, which should’ve been a red flag that free to play was not a great choice.

So free to play + prominent Apple feature does not equal an automatic slam dunk. Lesson learned. We’re still proud of the game.

Adam the Artist

I picked up Lili for the iPad recently, a game developed by a team of former Epic employees. I like to imagine them working on Gears of War, constantly pitching flower-based game mechanics. “What if instead of a chainsaw machine gun, you jump on their backs and pick flowers? Why won’t anyone listen to us? We quit.”

Aside from being very pretty for an iPad title, they’ve created a world that’s genuinely fun to explore. The combat mechanic’s pretty straightforward. It’s tactile and it fits the device well, but it’s not really the core of the game. I had just as much fun wandering around talking to people.

My biggest gameplay qualm was with the last area, Mill Hill, which had some ridiculously tough enemies. So much so that I ran out of buffer items, and just gave up and switched to easy mode. I wonder if that was intentionally to get people to buy IAP, or just a bad progression of difficulty. Or maybe I just suck, but those guys felt impossible to topple without LOTS of items.

Alex the Codesmith

is a busy man this month.

If you haven’t updated to Outwitters 1.1, you are missing out! Literally. The game won’t let you play again until you update. Here’s a breakdown of new things that aren’t old anymore.

The Ups and Downs of Your Game Limit

If you bought anything at all from the Outwitters store, your game limit is still good old 20! We’ve added an item to the store that increases it to 35 if you wanna. We really do appreciate anyone that’s dropped us a few dollars in your time with our game. Profits help us fund updates like new maps and teams. As long as Outwitters is paying the bills, we can keep working on it! (We’ll have news on our first team addition soon.)

If you’re a free user with no intention of ever buying anything, that’s totally cool by us! But we’ve reduced your game limit to 5, because there are A LOT of you and your turns are pretty expensive for us. If that makes you mad, we’re very sorry, but it only costs $3 for you to not be mad anymore.

New:

• New item in the store. Increase your max game limit to 35!

Fixes:

• fixed a crash on new league game
• fixes for games not timing out after 4 days
• fixes for large turn count games not loading
• fixed crash on viewing profile and exiting quickly
• fixed crash when joining a game due to a desynced server/client game state
• no active games list bug fixed
• fixed crashing when servers are down for maintenance

Map Change:

• Starting soldier has been moved back on Foundry, helping to neuter one rush strategy

Adam the Artist

I actually found an app all on my own for iOS, which is, like, unheard of. It was in the App Store’s “What’s Hot” section while Outwitters was being featured. The icon intrigued me, I tapped for details, & the screen shots closed the deal. So that’s what that feels like, I thought.

Shellrazer is a war-turtle-riding simulator from the guys that made N+, which Alex and I used to play together. I’m not sure how well this one will work on an iPhone, but on iPad it was perfect for me. You stack some guns on top of your turtle, throw some perks on those guns, and mow down goblins and gun towers and sheep-mounted knights. The difficulty gets pretty nuts towards the end, so paying attention to which guns work best on who and what perks you need becomes really important. I had a blast.

Alex the Codesmith

I’ve been on a PC gaming kick as of late, meaning more than Starcraft 2. Every now and then, especially after a major release or between projects, I tend to go through a lot of games. I usually don’t even come close to beating them. I’ve kind of gotten over the nagging “completionist” in me. If a game offers a decent amount of entertainment for a reasonable amount of time, I’m happy. Maybe it’s a sign of getting older…

In any case, one game I picked up during the Steam Summer Sale was Anno 2070. Very cool city building game with insane amount of depth. The selling point for me was the ability to play in the same ‘world’ with friends, either as separate cities or sharing a city. Provided for some good times.

Another game I’ve sunk a decent amount of hours into was the Arma 2 mod Day Z. It’s in alpha so ‘buggy’ doesn’t really begin to describe the quirkiness of that game. But it’s definitely playable and extremely difficult. The concept of being put on a vast landmass to survive on your own, avoiding zombies, and other players was really compelling. Death in this game is permanent. You start from square one when you die. You could be a month into the game, miles north into the territory and have a bad run in with some zombies, starve to death, or get killed by some bandits (other players) that don’t like the way you looked at them. From a design perspective, the game is fascinating. It’s a multiplayer game where paranoia between players is truly real, and even though there are weapons not everyone is rushing to point X to up their kill/death ratio. Killing another player in this game has a unnerving effect (at least on me). If you manage to kill someone (either by accident, defensively, or just by being a griefer) the consequences are huge. You could have potentially wiped out weeks if not months of another player’s playtime with a single shot (click of the mouse).

And finally, I’m currently pretty into Tower Wars by Supervillain Studios. It recently came out for PC on Steam. I’ve never been a big Tower Defense fan (mostly from fatigue of the game type), but this game was refreshing enough for me to be genuinely interested in the nuances of the tower interactions with the creeps. Having 2v2 and 3v3 co-op head-to-head is kind of what clinched it for me (again). Good times had by all.

Adam the Artist

I’m one of those weirdos that still turns on his Wii once in a while . I couldn’t find a better way to word that. Anyway, the virtual console is a nostalgia factory, so I bought Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG. It’s surprisingly easy to get me to buy old games all over again.

I found another iOS title that hooked me pretty hard, and it’s free so you should check it out. Project 83113 (which is a terrible name, because I have to think really hard to type it) is a bullet hell platformer with swipey slide and jump controls. They take some getting used to, but it’s comfortable as long as you aren’t trying to stand still. It’s a bullet dodging game, so… I don’t think I was supposed to be standing still anyway. Each level has highscore goals and hidden objects (GOD I love hidden objects) so there’s nice replay value to be had. I’m a sucker for a good platformer.

Alex the Codesmith

Alex is playing House Hunter. It’s a very dull and time-consuming game where you try to buy a house in Atlanta.

Download Outwitters for free, and if you feel extra generous you could leave us an App Store review. Huge thanks to everyone for your support with this launch, we’re excited to be entertaining you again.

That’s my favorite headline in recent memory, by the way. Here’s a fun fact that only the beta testers know: if you tap and hold on a completed game entry, you can get a hyperlink to your replay. If anyone views that link on an iDevice with Outwitters installed, they can watch your game. It is known.

Also available today, Outwitters: the Soundtrack by Mike Reagan and his company, REdVOLT Audio. They did all our music and screams of pain and kissy noises for Outwitters. You can stream it for free, or own it for 99¢.

Adam the Artist

I recently finished an XBLA title I’d been itching to play since GDC, Bastion. Their creative lead gave a talk on atmosphere in games that I really enjoyed. At the end of the game you’re presented with two pretty heavy choices which determine your ending. That’s not unusual, but what I really loved about the way they approached this was that none of the endings is “right”. The game just asks you to consider what you would do, without “gotcha” consequences for choosing wrong. It’s also a fun hack n’ slash with a lot of imagination, so you should pick it up if you haven’t already.

On iOS lately I’m mostly playing the Outwitters beta. And I tried a few bad games that I can’t recommend.

Alex the Codesmith

I actually turned on my Xbox 360! I did it to play Awesomenauts for a couple hours. It’s a 3 vs. 3 side-scrolling DOTA/Team Fortress mash up. Hilarious fun and love the style. Definitely worth checking it out if you’re looking to play a fun multiplayer game with some buddies.

On the iOS front I highly recommend checking out SpellTower if you haven’t already. Do it.

Now that the Outwitters beta testers have broken it in, the OML Forums are open for biness (big thanks to Mike Berg of WeHeartGames for helping us make that happen). We figure a community-centered multiplayer game like Outwitters is going to require some sort of… community center. So when the game comes out and you’re in need of a serious 2v2 partner, we hope you’ll drop in. Feel free to register and post amongst yourselves in the mean time.

Seems like just yesterday Whitaker Blackall was composing our very first piece of custom game music, Tilt to Live‘s Code Red theme. But that was long ago, when he was still called Whitaker Blackall.

The now hitched and renamed Whitaker Trebella  joined the proud fraternity of iPhone developers today with his first App Store release, Polymer (99¢). It’s a slidey connecty puzzle piece game, best demonstrated by this trailer:

We’ve all been blown away by how far and how fast Whit’s development career has matured (though it helps that he has no shortage of enthusiasm). We wish him the best of luck with this game, and encourage you guys to throw him a buck and check it out!