Conventions
Stomp And Destroy In Tiny Titans – PAX Aus 2015
There’s something uniquely satisfying about games where you play as the monster, stomping, crashing, destroying everything in your path. Australian indie team Terran Studios has captured that feeling in their mobile destruction-fest Tiny Titans. Players guide their monster through a city, trying to destroy as much as they can before being shot down by the police or having their time run out. I spoke with Michael Breen, managing director, and Tim Schmidt, technical director, about Tiny Titans.
“We did an in-house game jam when we first started the company, just to give us some ideas,” Schmidt says. “We liked this idea, so we went with it. We also wanted to go with something small-scale, since we’d just started the company, we wanted to make sure we had all our processes right. Although, we were aiming for three months and it ended up being eight months because we just kept adding ideas to the game.”
All of those ideas came together to form Tiny Titans as it is now. “It’s a mobile destruction game. Basically, you need to destroy as much of the city as you can before the timer runs out,” Schmidt says. “Destroying buildings will give you more time, so you have to aim for buildings as much as you can. But the cops are always going to be chasing you, so you need to take out the cops as much as you can too.”
Schmidt says they decided to keep any kind of gore out of the game because they wanted their target audience to be kids. “Because kids are our target market, we’ve also gone for an ethical monetisation plan. That way, kids aren’t going to be bugging their parents to get them to buy stuff all the time. There is the opportunity to spend money if you want to, but we’ve made it so it’s not necessary at all. You get coins from multiple different areas, there’s buildings you can destroy to get coins, and there’s also an achievement system that will give you coins and that will unlock some of the skins.”
Essentially, there’s nothing in Tiny Titans that can’t be unlocked by simply playing the game. It also has rewarded ads, which is a system many mobile developers are starting to adopt. Rather than forcing players to sit through ads, the game asks the player if they would like to watch an ad in exchange for some kind of in-game reward – in the case of Tiny Titans, watching an ad will give the player some coins. Coins are then used to unlock things in the game.
“The parents that we’ve had play it, who’ve had their kids play it, have had a great response,” Schmidt says. “They all really seem to be enjoying it. We’d only just released it and weren’t sure what people were going to think, so that’s really good.”
I asked Schmidt what he thought about the way mobile games and “freemium” games often get a bad rap. “I can definitely understand that,” he says. “It comes down to the game itself, obviously. The developer needs to make money, otherwise they can’t keep making games. But you’ve got to find practical ways to doing it. That’s why we’ve got the rewarded ads in there – it’s an easy way for us to get into it without annoying anyone.”
Schmidt says Terran Studios has been conscious of the fact that choosing children as their target market means they need to show extra restraint when it comes to in-game transactions. “With the target market we’re going for, it’s not very ethical to exploit that. So that’s why we’ve got the model we’ve got… We never wanted there to be a paywall.”
“Everything just unlocks as you play,” Breen says. “I think it averages out to around three hours of play to unlock each titan. It also adds to the replayability, which is something not a lot of mobile games have. Each titan has its own abilities – some charge ahead, some are stationary. The unicorn shoots rainbows.”
Currently, Tiny Titans is only available on Android. Terran is working on finishing the iOS version, which they believe will be ready in approximately five weeks. “We want to make sure we test everything properly – we don’t want to give people a broken game,” Breen says.
Terran prioritised Android over iOS in this case because they knew they could get the game released more quickly via Google Play than via Apple’s App Store. “We uploaded the morning of PAX, and it only takes a couple of hours for it to go through on Google Play. It takes about a week on the App Store. Plus, we all happen to have Samsung phones, so we can test it.”
Breen says they had originally planned to make a game for PC rather than for mobile because they had missed the mobile boom. But the growth in the mobile sector in South America and Asia convinced them to turn to mobile development. “They’re now getting that mobile boom, so the market has exploded.”
The reception to Tiny Titans has been very positive, Schmidt says. “We haven’t had a single complaint, and we’ve had people coming back, asking for more free stuff and characters.”
“I keep getting a lot of kids dragging their parents back to keep playing,” Breen says. “The best reception to get is the fact that kids don’t give the phone back, which helps our motivation to keep developing. We wanted to target kids, and obviously they’re going to be harsh critics if it’s bad, but they just keep coming back.”
“And a lot of people who are coming by, who at first are like ‘nah, this isn’t my thing,’ give it a second and then they want to download it,” Schmidt says. That positive response can be a powerful force for indie developers.
After Tiny Titans has reached all mobile platforms, Terran Studios plans to release more characters and maps for people to use.
In exactly two weeks, an epic journey will start in the heart of Transylvania for all those who love comics, games, and movies. The Transylvania Comic Con starts on October 18 and invites all participants to enjoy a three-day event where they will get to unleash their imagination at the cosplay contest, meet their favorite actors at the photo ops and photographs sessions, or find out interesting things at the panels hosted by the event. Great fun is granted even for those who would just like to take a look at the ComicCon and do some shopping of really cool items or snap some pictures with famous props, such as the Iron Throne.
The Transylvania Comic Con will take place in the heart of Transylvania, at the BT Arena in Cluj-Napoca. The event starts on Friday, October 18 at 4 P.M and lasts until Sunday, October 20. The stage hosts’ roles will be filled by Maria Muller and Ken Huegel. Some of the celebrities invited to the event are ‘Vikings’ and ‘Hunger Games’ star Alexander Ludwig, Kevin McNally Pirate of the Caribbean, ‘Spartacus’, ‘Arrow’, and ‘Shanarra’ star Manu Bennet, Rick Cosnett, from ‘The Vampire Diaries’, ‘Stargate Atlantis’ star David Nykl, and Roger Ashton- Griffiths, who played Mace Tyrell in Game of Thrones. Cosplay enthusiasts will get to see Daisy Cosplay and Imriel Cosplay.
Transylvania Comic Con will also welcome three featured artists and a Cosplay Guest, who wasn’t announced yet. The schedule is not public yet, and the timetable is subject to change, however, on October 5 participants will get the first glimpse at the program, from where they will find out more about the guests of the event. What we already know is that Transylvania Comic Con will host cosplay competitions on Saturday and Sunday. The General Cosplay Competition hosted on Saturday targets solo cosplay enthusiasts only, while on Sunday groups will get the chance to show off their costumes. This is also the day of the qualifiers for the international cosplay competition Clara Cow Cosplay Cup.
Tickets for the Transylvania Comic Con are still available for purchase, except for the VIP 3 Days Tickets, which are all sold out. The rules for participants and the tickets can all be found on the event’s homepage, here. It will definitely be an epic event, so we hope to see you there!
The countdown has begun. There are less than three weeks until Transylvania ComicCon kicks off. The three-day event will take place in the heart of Transylvania, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between 18 October and 20 October at the BT Arena. Those who will attend the event will get to meet some really cool guests and can participate in numerous activities, all of which are going to be amazingly fun. The schedule of the event won’t be available for another couple of days, however, the majority of guests are known.
Transylvania ComicCon will welcome some beloved actors, such as Alexander Ludwig, Kevin McNally, Manu Bennett, Rick Cosnett, David Nykl, and Roger Ashton- Griffiths. The event will be hosted by Maria Muller and Ken Huegel, and the YouTubers/ streamers of the Transylvania ComicCon will be Cluj-Napoca’s own Creative Monkeyz. It is not yet clear who the featured artists will be, but this should become known on October 5th, when the event’s schedule will become available on the website.
Besides having photo ops and autograph sessions with the aforementioned guests, participants will also be able to show off their imagination and skills at the cosplay contests. The solo General Cosplay Competition starts on October 19 from 13:00. The group competition starts on Sunday, also at 13:00. At the same time, the qualifiers for the international cosplay competition Clara Cow Cosplay Cup will start. Other activities participants can attend at the Transylvania ComicCon include panels, and props& booths. Naturally, there will be an artists’ alley, a gaming area, and a shopping area too.
The entry fee for the Transylvania ComicCon is really affordable. Those who want to have a photo op and get the autograph of Kevin McNally or Roger Ashton-Griffiths have to pay less than 15 Euros for the treat. The VIP three-day tickets cost less than 100 Euros, while one-day entry fees are as low as 10 Euros. These prices may be incredibly low but the level of fun will go incredibly high at the Transylvania ComicCon. Check out the event and all it has to offer here.
Let’s travel back to 2000s. Can you remember the time when MMORPG genre popped up out of nowhere? Early genre games such as Everquest, World of Warcraft or Guild Wars were considered to be the prophets of the new age of PC gaming. MMORPGs or Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games have been considered the most gratifying, rewarding, immersive, and time-soaking games out there. However, as time went by, only a handful of MMORPGs managed to secure their communities and stay a little while longer.
So today we’re talking some time (and internet space), introducing the very best games of the MMORPG genre. Some of these games are old and can brag about their long history while some of them are fairly fresh inviting fans of the genre to explore seemingly unending content. Most importantly – all of these games are alive and will grant you hundreds of hours of joy.
- The Elder Scrolls Online
We begin our list with the youngest of the bunch. ZeniMax Online Studios creation, The Elder Scrolls Online is set in the magical continent of Tamriel which will be familiar to the fans of TES franchise. The game’s storyline is indirectly related to other games of the franchise; however, the game is set way far back before the events of Oblivion, or Skyrim. Currently the game has two expansions: The Morrowind and the Summerset, however, the developers have promised a third expansion The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr which is coming out on June 4, 2019.
- Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV is developed and published by Square Enix. First released back in 2013 the game quickly became a hit among many MMORPG genre fans across PC and PlayStation communities. It has tons of great content which is keep on coming even to this day. Recently Square Enix has announced yet another game expansion titled Shadowbringers which will bring a variety of new dungeons and include yet another playable race: the rabbit-like Viera, already known to the fans of Final Fantasy XII. The game will also increase its level cap from 70 to 80 and introduce a number of new zones to explore.
- Guild Wars 2
This ArenaNet MMORPG game certainly deserves a spotlight in our list. Guild Wars 2 is an attractive piece because of its ever-living world structure which captivates players with multiple quests, continuing storyline, and rewarding gameplay mechanics. The game is also considered among the best MMORPGs because of its freedom and versatility when it comes to personalization. You can literally create, augment, and specialize your character in such a way that it would be exceptionally unique to your preferred playstyle.
- RuneScape
RuneScape is the oldest game on our list, however, it carries the very same explorer’s spirit within. It’s safe to assume that if you’re interested in MMORPG genre you’ve tried this game already at a certain point in time. We can still remember the wood chopping, fire making, and fishing activities which required hours upon hours of discipline, and we also remember how much joy did that provide. And it still does if you’re patient enough. That’s why it secured a spot on our list!
- World of Warcraft
No MMORPG games list would be complete without the king of the genre. It has been over 14 years since Blizzard released World of Warcraft. The game was a phenomenal success and became one of the most iconic titles of all time. World of Warcraft is even included in the video game Hall of Fame and there are plenty of reasons why. Even today the game is huge and has millions of players logging in to play it every month. Throughout its history World of Warcraft has seen 7 major game expansions with tons of great content to explore. Furthermore, Blizzard is planning to release a Classic version of the game sometime this summer which means that the king of MMORPGs can be entering its second lifecycle. If you’ve never played – we do recommend you give it a try.
While some of these games can be played for free, some will require you to purchase certain expansions (or game time). On Eneba Marketplace you’ll find everything you need in order to start your new MMORPG adventure!
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