Hello all doodlers!
It’s been some time since the last update was released and we wouldn’t want you to feel left in the dark while we are working on a new one. So, this is a short update from us to let you know what is going on.
We are preparing something big for you all this time. Some big changes, features, fixes and some things that should make those who miss King of the Hill happy. It will take some time to finish, though, as it is no ordinary update but we believe that it will be worth the wait. Hush shush for now, but more details will be revealed soon.
Charadium is living its colorful life. Players create masterpieces, compete, make friends, communicate, exercise their drawing talent, and of course have fun. We, On5, keep updating game, making it better with each new version. Very recently we introduced an addition to our impressive collection of artistic tools: the lasso fill, and we are hearing the users love it very much.
This week we submitted to Apple another release (will likely go live next week) which includes some more highly requested features:
You’ll be able to zoom in to draw details and nice touches. Especially handy for players drawing on iPhone!
Also we’ve updated the user interface a little bit to make it simpler and more streamlined. Did you ever have problems inviting and managing friends? Updated and improved as well!
On top of this new update also includes fully updated high resolution graphics to fully support the capabilities of the new iPad’s gorgeous screen.
Another fantastic feature we want to share with you is the ability to see drawing replays online, right on the Charadium website. Previously you could see picture replays just in turn-based games you are playing. Now you can share live replays of your masterpieces with everyone, even those who don’t have Charadium (yet!).
Here are links to some drawings people created in Charadium games for you to enjoy (and maybe learn some techniques). Click to view the live replay!
People also share their drawings via Instagram. You are welcome to do the same!
Thanks for your support! We are here to make the game as awesome as possible for you!
1) Charadium update is out. We keep expanding the functionality of the game, and this update has some very requested features to make many players happy:
in-game leaderboards: see the top rankings within your friends, your city, country, and worldwide
the new fill tool allows you to fills areas with color
if you lose connectivity when posting a drawing to Ping Pong, it will be preserved and posted the next time you are online, no more lost masterpieces
now it is possible to invite friends to live or Ping Pong games directly via Game Center
live drawing replays on the website. Share your drawings to check this out
Also we are planning another update pretty soon, which will simplify the interface to make the game easier to understand, and also we will upgrade all graphics to high resolution ones, for the outstanding look on the new iPad.
Also, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day, in Charadium too. Prepare for special words and bonuses from St. Patrick.
2) Charadium HD for iPad went free today for limited time, in celebration of our victory at IMGA as the Best Mobile Social Game!
We would like to thank everyone for your fantastic feedback. We read all the mail we receive (and we receive a lot), and it’s a pleasure to do it. Also thank you for the clear 5-star rating on the App Store!
Charadium has just won the prize in category “Best Social Game” at 8th International Mobile Game Awards (IMGA)! This was announced today at the IMGA award ceremony during MWC in Barcelona, Spain.
The award, just outside of the Fira Montjuïc center, Barcelona
It’s really awesome, and we would like to thank three groups of people:
The fans who inspire us to do what we do
People on the On5 team who turn ideas and inspiration into games
The IMGA jury members and IMGA organizational committee! As told on the ceremony, thanks for listening and actually hearing!
After the free Charadium weekend we got overloaded with thousands of mails from the new users with feedback and suggestions, and our support team still hasn’t processed all of them. Usually we answer mails very fast, but right now if you wrote us a mail, it may take several days before we reply. We sincerely apologize for that.
Some ten days ago our beautiful tower defence game was launched and it saw success being featured by Apple in the “New and noteworthy” section and with big ads in the App Store! It’s an incredible event for any developer to be featured by Apple. Yay!
Launching a massively multiplayer game is pretty different from launching a regular game, and it’s never easy. There come problems which were impossible to encounter with just 50 testers, appear server load issues which did not happen during stress tests, and so on. During these 10 days we fixed a lot of things we didn’t see earlier. And still working on more.
Also, the game changed its name. It’s now called Spice Bandits. Yarrr.
Also, at the moment we are waiting for Apple to approve the Charadium update which fixes the issue with Facebook logins which appeared across different applications on February 1st. This update also has some very anticipated features in!
And… we are working on a few other games at the same time!
P.S. We are reading ALL comments in App Store and other places, and we are working to improve and expand both Spice Bandits and Charadium. Thank you for your feedback!
In just few days the world will see our game Spice Invaders. We are very excited about the launch here at On5, and even decided to write a big “making of” post which will show how we did this game.
It all started back in march 2010 (almost 2 years ago, hard to believe how long ago that was) when we were thinking about making a new game. There were no tower defense games in the app store which were both interesting and beautiful (maybe we just didn’t find, who knows). On top of that, there were no multiplayer TD strategies at all. This is a very early sketch of the planned multiplayer modes. Three of them made it to the final version: competition, camps, and cooperative.
And the code magic began. Step by step in pretty short timeframe we’ve got ready: basic gameplay, level editor, and a few testing levels, so the game started. Also we were playing around with the assets, choosing the final style for the graphics and thinking about the storyline. The first tower took longest to create (take words “sketch”, “render”, “discuss” and “reject”, mix them in any order 10 times and add “eveyone is happy” in the end, that’s how it was). Here are just some of variations we had in the works.
If we spent the same amount of time to polish each tower we now have in the game, we would still be pretty far from completing anything. But luckily, all other 53 towers (6 types, each type has 3 development lines, and each line has 3 upgrades which is 54 possible tower upgrades) were created much faster. We actually revised some towers a few months after, but that was just our will of perfection.
We created a huge load of maps: about 80. Only 58 best ones made it into the game. Planning to add more in the future.
We’ve also worked on creeps (the enemy units you defend your bases from). Same thing happened there. We wanted to find a unique post-apocalyptic style for humans, futuristic but not fancy at the same time. Soldiers, robots, tanks, planes. Done and redone a number of times In a few months we decided to add more creeps, and colored the existing ones too. It worked perfect.
By design humans had to be technological, not fancy, in contrast to the pirates who are pretty and kind of old-school. We’ve selected steampunk as the style for the towers (however not so much left from the initial feeling of steampunk we had in earliest sketches) and cute style for the main heroes, our pirates. Hard to say who exactly they are, but we called them mini-bears at some point. So.. here we go. Meet the team!
Ever wondered what a nuke consists of? Well, it starts with an egg. Then you paint it like you do for Easter. Add a couple of stabilizers, and here you go: a nuke. We have three different nukes to choose from in Spice Invaders, each with its own look.
A game like this needs the main menu. The idea was pretty simple. Main guy (the player’s character) is standing on the stage like a boss. Menu items are on the right in a spice tank. Everything is simple and straightforward: Sketch, cleanup, draw, adjust, cut, integrate, animate, fix issues on different devices (if you call that simple…). We also added the player’s friends with their stats to the stage later. Now it’s social.
Need an icon? No problem, our artists just created about 50 variants to choose from! A bit too much. It ended up having a global poll in our office and at Chillingo to choose which one is the best. We think we selected the right one.
When you tap the icon for the first time you see the introduction movie which shows who the pirates are and what they are up to. You probably already saw this movie in the trailer. Here is how it was created. From the idea to concept art to finalized artwork. Actually the entire world shown in the video, from the first pirate with a can of spice to Earth is a single very very wide scene. At least that is how it was drawn.
This is the trailer where you can see the intro clip:
We were working with Chillingo as the publisher for the game. People there really know what they do and gave us lots of great advices on how some things should be done and how other things shouldn’t be done. Great experience. Thank you guys!
Sometimes when you are really passionate about what you do, you can’t notice the flow of time. When development was completed, we calculated the time spent. We spent about 11000 hours in total, making this game. Artists, engineers, sound designers, producers, etc. It costed us a lot more money than we expected. But the idea was simple: either make this game the best in its genre or just not do it at all. Whatever it took, we did it.
The pirate fleet is waiting for a signal to start the invasion. Spice Invasion.
1) Best App Ever 2011 Awards are finished. Charadium won in three nominations!
1st place as the Best Board Game! 3rd in Best Multiplayer Game, and another 3rd in Best Word Game!
It happened not only because Charadium is a great game, but it happened thanks to your votes! Thanks a lot!
2) Experts from IMGA reviewed over half thousand games to select 30 nominees for 8th International Mobile Games Awards in 6 categories. And Charadium was nominated in the Best Mobile Social Game category. Check out our neighbors there, all games are worth to check them out! (even though Charadium should win anyway )
If you like Charadium, please support us once more and give us a chance to win People’s Choice award! Please vote for us (yeah, registration required).
Hello all doodlers!
St. Patrick’s day, in Charadium too. Prepare for special words and bonuses from St. Patrick.
In a few months we decided to add more creeps, and colored the existing ones too. It worked perfect.
A bit too much. It ended up having a global poll in our office and at Chillingo to choose which one is the best. We think we selected the right one.
