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.

We’ve been teasing our next project for a few weeks now, and it’s been AGONIZING for me to keep my big mouth shut. So without further ado, put on your Sunday best for Tilt to Live Easter!

As soon as we saw the announcement for Angry Birds Halloween, Alex and I were instantly brainstorming holiday editions of TtL. Wouldn’t it be cool if the dots were ghosts? Cranberry sauce? Snowballs? Realistically, it was too late for us to jump on the Halloween bandwagon. And November/December was already booked with Viva la Turret.

We want this Easter edition to stand alone as its own thing, and more importantly to capture the fun of the holiday in a really authentic way. For us Easter is about surprises, the thrill of finding hidden stuff, and the creativity of decorating your eggs. So obviously, we started by turning all of the enemies into easter eggs.

We’re still in the very early stages of establishing a scoring system, so I can’t go into a lot of detail. But we do know that along with points, you’ll be accumulating Easter Spirit via a meter at the bottom of the HUD. Here’s the cool part: if you die with enough Easter Spirit, there’s a Resurrection mechanic that prevents a Game Over, saves your progress, and respawns you after 72 hours.

Tilt to Live Easter will (obviously) be released April 24th, and will debut at 99¢. Stay tuned for screenshots and a trailer as E-Day approaches.

The Viva la Coop HD update is approved and ready for installation. If you have an iPad and a friend with another iPad, and both of you have Viva la Turret, then this is great news! If you don’t, then I guess it’s just Thursday. Our next project will have fewer requirements, we promise.

Other fixes:

• The scoring bug that gave people highscores in the billions has been fixed. There was only one way to restore the honor of the TtL HD leaderboards, and that was a Classic and Code Red leaderboard reboot. So go prove to the world that your old rank wasn’t a fluke!
• The vortex will no longer suck you out of the Perforator turret in Classic & CR.
• Some typos in our awards have been fxied.

The Tilt to Live Merch store is just about finished. My shirt got here & the print quality was great, but I screwed up the design and won’t be posting pics until a do-over arrives. This is why we test things. Should be ready to go next week. Also, our next project will be announced April 2nd.

Oh, hey! I didn’t see you come in. Alex and I were just finishing up playtesting Viva la Coop HD. But I’m sure you can see that. Because you are in the room with us in this bit I’m doing. Viva la Big Coop is being submitted for Apple’s approval today, so we’re finally checking “make iPhone and HD the same” off our to-do list.

In Other News

We got iPad 2’s to test with! They are thin. I named mine Padly Paddington, & Alex’s Padrick Paddington III. They’re twins.

In my down time, I’ve been experimenting with merchandise options (namely cafepress) for getting some Tilt to Live t-shirts and stuff made. Why now? I dunno. I want one. I’ve ordered a test shirt & poster to make sure these things are worth the money. They should be here this weekend. If Alex and I approve the quality, I’ll set up a little store for you guys to peruse.

Lastly, we’re going to tell you about our next project around the end of this month. So that’s neat.