[1:50:21 PM] Alex Okafor: that ham looks so juicy
[1:50:32 PM] Adam Stewart: i stole that pic off some site
[1:50:35 PM] Adam Stewart: should i buy stock art?
[1:50:49 PM] Adam Stewart: we’re using it in an ad, so technically yes
[1:52:34 PM] Alex Okafor: one sec
[1:52:37 PM] Alex Okafor: i might have some licensed stock photos
[1:52:49 PM] Adam Stewart: …of ham?
[1:52:59 PM] Alex Okafor: what can i say?
[1:53:27 PM] Alex Okafor: ya i do

NOTE: We’ve run into issues with changing the price of our HD full version. Some people have reported they aren’t able to upgrade at the moment due to an error coming up saying the item “is currently being modified”. This little technical problem has kinda lasted through the entire sale. Hopefully we can rectify the situation soon, and reschedule this sale for next weekend.

YOU GUYS. It only just occurred to us, but we really love May. We love May so much that we’re dropping the price on Tilt to Live HD‘s Full Version all weekend!

It’s the WEEKEND MAY-HAM sale

In honor of May, the fifth and most excellent month of the Gregorian calendar, Tilt to Live HD’s Full Version is dropping from $4.99 to just 99¢ for a limited time! That’s every gametype we’ve ever conceived, including Viva la Turret & Viva la Coop, for only two 9’s and a cents! But act fast, because after Sunday I feel like we’ll be less excited about May.

What better month is there to enjoy a ham? If you said “Christmas”, that’s not a month.

Click to enlarge.

So for each race in Outwitters, I’m designing a “home turf” map theme to compliment the character designs. What you see here is a wide view of the Feedback’s homeworld, as it stands now. This is also kind of our first screenshot! Neat.

The colorful spaces with the team logos are spawn points, which are the spaces you tap to create new units. The space with the flag on it is a capture space, which I can explain for you guys another day. Suffice it to say, those help you gain the upper hand. And the number floating beside each unit displays its health.

The Feedback’s world uses a lot of dull grays and browns to give it a doom-and-gloom, industrial vibe. They are our robot overlords, after all. The other maps I’m working on will be more vibrant, colorful places like a beach scene and a forest village. Still not really sure if this is the design we’ll stick with. There are some other ideas in my sketchbook I’d like to try out, if we have time.

That’s all for this week. It’s starting to look like a real game now! Check back soon for more Outwitters team reveals and artwork.

Alex got asynchronous play working in the prototype last night! We had our first online test of Outwitters, and I’m happy to report that I won. Alex will tell you that he wasn’t trying to win, just testing to ensure that everyone’s turns were getting “pushed to the server” or whatever. My turns were pushing alright. Pushing to his base and beating it to death.

So Outwitters is a multiplayer, multi-race strategy game. How many races will we include? However many we can finish. Here’s the first race we ever mocked up, wayyy back in October. They’re the team Alex and I are testing with in our first, bare bones prototype.

When you pick a race in Outwitters, you’re choosing two things: what do I want to look like, and what’s my special unit? Every race has 5 standard units plus one exclusive, special unit.

• Soldier: Balance of speed & strength
• Runner: Fast mover, weak fighter
• Heavy: Packs a punch, but gets around a little slower
• Medic: Lover, not a fighter
• Sniper: Long-range, low mobility
• Special Unit: Unique for each race

The sixth unit isn’t a “super unit” at the time of this writing. You can create one for the same price as anything else, and use it whenever you want. They may not march effortlessly across the battlefield leaving only devastation in their wake, but they do have unique abilities to keep your opponents on their toes.

For the Feedback in our prototype, the special unit is called a Scrambler. It’s an incredibly persuasive, cybernetic floating brain. It’s special power: possession! If you manage to corner an enemy with a Scrambler, you can instantly brainwash him to join your team. It’ll even hijack another race’s special unit, so you can use their own abilities against them.

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks at artwork, levels, and races as we expand our prototype into the full-fledged game, arriving free-to-try on iPads and iPhones later this year.

Game II has a name now. It’s Outwitters, and I’ll have the Feedback team ready to show next week. Now for another edition of: What We’re Playing.

Adam (the Artist)

Out of curiosity and a love for exploration games, I picked up Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery (iOS) recently. Haven’t got a clue whether I recommend this game. On the one hand, it’s beautiful and creative and has great music. On the other, there have been a few instances where I sat pawing at the screen like a lonely kitten, hoping to god something would start glowing or tell me what to do. Or worse, something would glow, taunting me that I had the right idea but was tapping when I should be rubbing. Or drawing figure eights or spinning the iPad on my fingertip like a basketball. Needless to say, I’m stuck in such a place and bitter.

On the console front (my favorite front), I just finished Beyond Good & Evil HD (XBLA). The game is extremely easy, which makes it like the perfect snack food after Dead Space 2. It plays like Metal Gear meets that Star Fox game that Rare made. The one with the little triceratops. Stop me if I’ve lost you. Anyway, it had a really unique story, likable characters, and kickass latin music. I really hope the sequel makes it to store shelves.

Alex (the Codesmith)

Being the multiplayer and co-op feind that I am, I recently got my grubby hands on Super Stickman Golf. As usual, I’m late to the party. Admittedly, I picked up the game solely because I heard of the multiplayer for it and wanted to try it out, single player be damned! It’s always great to find a game with solid single player gameplay that keeps me coming back, and has a really fun multiplayer to jump into when I have a few buddies waiting around with me. Not to mention the catchy soundtrack was made by the talented Whitaker Blackall, who also did the Tilt to Live soundtrack.

On the PC front, it’s still Starcraft 2 for me. Although Portal 2 has complicated things. Thankfully, I finished the Portal 2 co-op last night with a friend so it won’t eat into my SC2 ladder climbing for that much longer…heh.

Have an app you think we should check out? Let us know in the comments section.

Game II was announced pretty fast and loose. Not a lot of details on gameplay, because the game doesn’t actually exist yet. But we’re all about keeping you guys informed, and we can answer some of the questions we’ve heard so far.

Q: But One Man Left, I don’t like strategy games :(.

Let me start by saying this game will be free to try out (like Tilt to Live HD), and we’re designing it to be something anybody would like, not just strategy aficionados.

The goal of the project is to boil the usual strategy experience down to what’s most fun about it, in our opinion. We’re tweaking some of the conventions, and eliminating tedium where we find it. The phrase “I don’t usually like this type of game, but…” has already come up in testing, which is definitely what we’re aiming for. How do we know if we’re on the right track? We’re recruiting testers that don’t like strategy games AND testers that love them, and we’re listening. And then we’re thinking really hard.

Q: What do you do in the game?

This may change, but right now: You start with a small army, a base to protect, and some “wits”: the resource you use to move and fight.  You’ll be using wits to add more men to your army, beat up your opponents, and ultimately destroy their base. Pretty easy to wrap your head around, right? It’s not hard to play at all, just tough to win.

There are six different units to choose from, and all cost the same amount of wits to spawn. The trick is recruiting the right men for the job, then getting through your opponent’s defenses.

Q: Will it have a single player campaign?

Nothing is set in stone, yet. Fighting AI in Monopoly is lame, so we’re leaning heavily toward player vs. player matches. Our goal is to have the online matchmaking work so well that you won’t ever need to play alone. And if you like who you’re matched with, you can continue to challenge them by name.

Next time:

We’ll introduce you guys to the Feedback, our robot race. Below is some concept art. They don’t actually have herbicide in the game, for obvious balancing reasons.

…This stylish Tilt to Live sneaker, hand-painted by the indigenous people of… I’m not actually sure where he’s from. But Graham Connell put some time into crafting this puppy, and we’re honored to have inspired him to deface his Reeboks. Some free merch is on its way to the house of Connell.

If anyone else feels inspired to create some fan art, send pics to contests at onemanleft.com. If we decide to post it, we’ll buy you one item of your choosing from our store.

Game II post coming Friday.

Maybe it’s just because we made the game, but Alex and I have been dorking out for a week or so about Tilt to Live merch. We auditioned Cafepress.com as a provider (primarily with Game II in mind), and what we’ve ordered has come back pretty cool. Plus, their return policy is more than reasonable if you don’t like your item.

So at long last, you can express your enthusiasm for Tilt to Live with an Overrun tee (pictured), or a super-high quality poster print. I think my favorites are the Caffeine Blast mug and the Pointillism print, which looks really nice in a frame in my office.

Fifteen lucky winners from the mailing list are getting free posters, so keep an eye out for that email today, and tell us where to send it!

I’ll have some cool stuff to show from Game II next week. Fun fact: we do have a name picked out already, we just can’t start using it until we’re finished tying up the rights. Don’t wanna jinx it.

So Tilt to Live Easter was an April Fools joke, and we apologize to anyone who got super psyched about the Resurrection feature. Today is April 2nd, and this is the real deal.

I’d like to start by saying that we love Tilt to Live, and there’s still a long list of update ideas we could try. This is probably not the last you’ll see of the old arrow n’ dots, but let’s give it a rest for now. We feel a need to demonstrate to ourselves and the world that we are no one-trick pony. We want to be such a tricky pony!

In that spirit: Game II is a multiplayer-focused, turn-based strategy game for everyone. “For everyone” means that you won’t have to play a 25 minute tutorial before you can start having fun. There aren’t 30 buttons onscreen, there’s no dialogue to skip, and you don’t have to be a space marine. Turn-based meaning you can play a match all in one sitting, or back and forth at your convenience like Words with Friends.

The prototype is literally just being finished, so not a ton of details feature-wise yet. We’re definitely going for local and online multiplayer (with matchmaking), so you can have fun with a friend or with a Stranger Danger. You’ll have a number of races to choose from, each with a unique advantage on the battlefield. Below are some characters concepts for the Plant and Cuddly teams (“for everyone” also means there’s a cuddly team).

Also pictured: a severed head from the Robot team. Production for Game II is now in full swing, and it will be ready for release later this year on iPhone, iPod Touch, & iPad. Whether it will be two apps or universal has yet to be determined. We’ll continue blogging this weekly-ish with additional artwork and updates on our progress.