Some of you may be curious about the mouse creature we’ve been showcasing in our Outwitters banner. He’s the soldier for the Adorables, and these are his brothers in war.

The Adorables is a team we designed for two kinds of people. The first are people who enjoy rainbows, birthday cakes, and narwhals. It’s the team I plan to use to get my sister to play. The second kind of person is slightly more sinister. They’ll be the most brilliant opponents you’ve ever encountered, but they’ll lack the common decency to simply walk all over you. No. They will skip all over you, with stuffed elephants and what looks like a Care Bear… but is legally distinct from a Care Bear.

Om Nom Nom

The Adorables’ special unit is called a “Mobi”, as in Moby Dick and as in Mobi-lity. Here’s how he works at the moment: Surround Mobi with up to six comrades, and tell him to inhale. All six will hop into his gullet, and all will move for the price of one character. If Mobi dies, everyone in his belly dies with him. So the Adorables’ advantage is the ability to quickly taxi your slower characters up the field. But it’s a risky maneuver, since Mobi himself is not very durable. The more units he carries, the more costly his loss.

The Adorables’ homeworld map is still under construction, but I can tell you that I watched Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, and the Care Bears this morning while brainstorming.

Now through Sunday. I had a nice post written about this with some very clever jokes, but it was mysteriously erased. I swear to god, this sale is cursed.

New Outwitters team post will be ready Wednesday.

Update: Tilt to Live HD’s IAP appears to be working again as of last night. Still no word on whether Apple will fix my mug.

As anyone who recently tried to buy TtL HD’s full version already knows, that In-App Purchase is still broken. We’re working with Apple to get it sorted out, and hope to have it back in order soon. Unfortunately, it’s out of our hands.

[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.