Tag: Anomaly Warzone Earth »

All three games in the Anomaly tower-defense/offense series are currently on sale at attractively low prices.

We've enjoyed them all over the years with Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Anomaly 2 both garnering 4 stars, while Anomaly Korea achieved a very respectable 4.5 stars. They're all great examples of how turning the tower defense formula on its head can produce a great series of games.

You can pick up Anomaly Warzone Earth HD and Anomaly 2 for $1.99 each, while Anomaly Korea is a mere $0.99. Under $5 for three great games? Perfect!

The sale is this week only, so get in there fast.

The original Anomaly Warzone Earth made some significant waves when it turned the tower defense world upside-down. Well, backwards, really. Now the sequel, Anomaly 2 is ready to make the jump from PC to iOS this fall.

The new-and-improved intense "tower offense" gameplay is being crammed onto mobile devices; with a solo campaign, multiplayer, tactical view, shape-shifting war-mechs, and more. All that, plus some fantastic visuals. There's no official word yet on a price, but there's a good chance it's going to be priced similarly to previous titles ($1.99 - $3.99).

For one week only, Anomaly Warzone Earth HD and Anomaly Korea are currently available for $1.99. The standard Anomaly Warzone Earth is also available for 50% off, pricing at $0.99 cents. The Anomaly series is best known for its enjoyable tower offense gameplay.

If you have played the first version of this game, Anomaly Warzone Earth you know that besides it's fantastic graphics it offered original gameplay dubbed a reverse-tower defense. While there is a light story, the focus is on the great gameplay.

While there is just a light storyline, it continues in this sequel that once you finish the first game, the war is not over. It has moved from Tokyo, the scene of the first game, to Korea. In this sequel, everything has been taken to the next level, especially the graphics. Pawel gives a few details.

"We have made slight changes to the interface. In the game there are a lot of visual improvements. Lens flare, particle effects, dynamic lighting. With the first Anomaly we were unable to do these things due to [hardware] limitations. Now with the iPads we are able to implement [these features]."

Changes in Anomaly Warzone Korea include a new vehicle, new powers, and new enemies to battle. The biggest change though are new gameplay modes. In the first version the gameplay was similar from level to level. Korea includes modes that require special strategies.

Anomaly Warzone Korea will be out before Christmas this year, if at all possible. Developed by 11Bit Studios from Poland, and published by Chillingo. Hit the jump for more screens from the game.

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Having won two Editor's Choice awards and a 2011 Best Apps Ever Award, it was about time we took a few moments to find out more about Polish developer, 11 Bit Studios.

Who is 11 Bit Studios?
Based in Warsaw, Poland, 11 Bit Studios is made up of experienced game industry professionals, with many of the team having worked in the industry since the 1990s. With 20 years of experience under his belt, Grzegorz Miechowski is the CEO alongside directors Bartosz Brzostek, Przemysław Marszał, Michał Drozdowski and the rest of the team.

What is 11 Bit Studios most famous for?
Most recently, Sleepwalker's Journey, a fantastic environmental puzzler that richly deserved its Editor's Choice award last week. Fast paced and topical title, Funky Smugglers and Tower Offense game, Anomaly: Warzone Earth have proven to be similarly high quality.

What's next on the horizon?
As announced earlier this year, Anomaly Korea is in the works and 11 Bit Studios reckons that they are "squeezing as much as possible from iPads and iPhones with this one and the graphics looks stunning." The developer also promises to be "putting more emphasis on [the] game's dynamics" with "more explosion effects". Next year promises the announcement of 11 Bit Studio's "biggest project" yet, but that's as much as were able to gleam from them.

What else is there to know about 11 Bit Studios?
We took some time to chat to senior writer, Pawel Miechowski, about just what makes the studio tick when it comes to iOS development.

148apps:What’s your favorite thing about iOS development?
11 Bit Studios: We are producers of PC and console games too, and iOS development is pretty different. The entire design process begins (after typical dev brainstorm for game's main theme is over, hehe) with thinking about how to make touchscreen gameplay enjoyable in the project. At least that's our way. We believe this particular gaming platform is based on the controls in the first place. PC games may be pad-controlled, keyboard-controlled, mouse-controlled or even be turn-based in a model where controls are totally less important comparing to story. That, of course, does not mean we are not putting attention to story, visuals et cetera, but there's something in the statement, that iOS development is very controls-oriented. And those controls are all about tapping and finger-swiping.

148apps: What do you enjoy most about making iOS games?
11 Bit Studios: I think I can say it for all of us, but this is my personal opinion that I find it quite enjoyable [to] bring ideas for nice gameplay when you just tap here and swipe there. I know it sounds obvious, but look at how games do that in many different ways and how many different things you can experience in gaming just by tapping. From Halfbrick's Fruit Ninja (oh mama what a game!), through Flight Control to Real Boxing, where you can feel how to be a boxer. When we were developing Sleepwalker's Journey the fun was coming up with ideas for different mechanics, implementing them, giving the build to our family members and then listening to their feedback. Feedback from kids is total fun! :)

Pawel explained to us the story behind the visuals of Sleepwalker's Journey, which was particularly charming. "I was given some drawings and early concepts from the main artist...our wives, sisters and daughters were involved in [this] design process…not full-time, but we purposely involved them in gameplay, audio and visual design by making them first critics and trying to be responsive as possible to their feedback."

Where can I find out more about 11 Bit Studios?
There are plenty of places to learn more, besides this very site. There's the developer's website, Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and the developers' official forums, also.

Developer 11 Bit Studios announced a sequel to their hit tower offense game, Anomaly Warzone Earth, today. They also released a trailer, which you can see in its full glory below.

Months have passed since humans claimed victory in the battle of Tokyo and drove the alien invaders from Earth… or so we thought. Alien robots took their revenge and have answered that defeat with a massive assault on human armies in the Korean peninsula. This is where you, Commander, come into the action. Take control of the attacking response team, lead your armored squad against the destructive alien towers, plan your tactics carefully, and use special weapons and abilities to turn the tide of battle in this genre-defining strategy game experience.

In what was another fantastic year in the world of iOS apps & games, we are here to bring you the fifty titles that we, the staff of 148Apps, thought were the best of the year. Here are the gaming titles 16 - 25 in our Best Games of 2011:

25. SpellTower: Zach Gage's second iOS release is another smash, as SpellTower proved to be a fun take on the ever-popular word game genre. It comes with some special restrictions to force more creative word usage, and the requirement to make words out of nearby tiles, managing the tile stack as well as trying to form words causes the game to have a deeper dynamic than many word games have.

24. Hard Lines: I did not know it was possible for lines that are only one pixel wide to have character, but these lines shout out constant witticisms while they try to make them crash into each other. A variety of modes are featured throughout this Tron lightcycles and Snake hybrid, along with the ability to compete against friends' high scores. Nothing like a good old high score battle to get the blood pumping, and to develop a little bit of hatred between friends that keeps the relationship strong!

23. Mega Mall Story: Kairosoft put out a ton of their simulation games on iOS this year; any one of them probably deserved to be in this slot, but Mega Mall Story gets the nod by taking elements from tower-building titles, with that signature Kairosoft charm to make it an experience that 148Apps writer Rob Rich is on record as saying that it made him squee. He said he squeed on the inside, but I leave it to our audience to judge the accuracy of the claim themselves.

22. Mission Europa Collector's Edition: iOS games typically shoot for a smaller focus than the other systems do, going for short-term, repeatable experiences. Mission Europa throws that out the window, bringing an original, and expansive first-person shooter with RPG elements to the platform. In the vein of such titles like System Shock (and its more well-known modern spiritual successor BioShock), this iOS original is proud to be big in a small world.

21. Sonic CD - 2 years ago, a Sonic fan named Christian Whitehead pitched Sega on an idea for an iOS port of Sonic CD using a custom engine he designed for bringing retro games to new platforms. Two years later, the results are about as perfect as they could have possibly been, as the game has been redone in perfect fashion, with new tweaks and extras, including the ability to listen to either the American or Japanese soundtrack. It's about as perfect as it could possibly be, and one can only hope that more Sonic games are brought to iOS in similar fashion.

20. The Blocks Cometh: This game really grew on me after a while, once the initial control issues were resolved. The climbing gameplay with action elements really shines through - like Mega Man in the middle of a Tetris stack. The update later in the year adding a new Game Boy-inspired mode, new Arcade and Casual modes, along with a landscape control option helped seal this among one of the best titles of the year.

19. Junk Jack: The most important game of 2011 may be Minecraft; it showed how one indie studio could make a million-seller without any traditional publisher support. Its open-world crafting gameplay was also brought to iOS, but it was alternative interpretations on the platform that may have been stronger overall. Junk Jack brings its own pixel art style to the table with 2D gameplay, but with all the resource harvesting, crafting, and survival intact.

18. Anomaly Warzone Earth: I'm surprised, frankly, that more games like this haven't been made yet, by which I mean tower offense, controlling the invaders among the winding paths and entrenched turrets that are usually the player's job to lay down. The game wisely tweaks the concept enough to let it feel like it has its own strategy and planning that is truly unique to this kind of game. It would be hard to imagine that any other interpretation of tower offense would fare much better.

17. The Last Rocket: Shaun Inman, artist of the number one game in the "Sky is Falling" genre, The Incident, developed this little puzzle-platformer that was downright charming. Controlling an anthropomorphic rocket trying to escape from a factory, the levels were often challenging but required thought to complete properly. The 16-bit-esque design aesthetic only added to the game's charm.

16. Army of Darkness Defense: Here's a dirty little secret: I don't watch a lot of movies. Whenever a friend asks me if I've seen a certain movie, the answer is usually a resounding no. I haven't seen the Evil Dead trilogy at all. That didn't stop me from enjoying this game, which was a castle defense game mixed with side-scrolling action. The simple controls were perfect for mobile, the gameplay laid its hooks into me. I played it for hours on a plane ride in to Chicago, continuing to fight off the Deadite hordes with my boomstick. I was so compelled to write the review for the game that I actually wrote it on my phone while on a commuter train! Is that not motivation?

Come back on Wednesday to see the titles we ranked 15-6.

Chillingo is certainly a prolific publisher on the App Store, having published literally hundreds of apps on the App Store. This pattern of activity isn't going to change in the next year, as Chillingo has announced a bunch of titles that they showed off this past week at GDC.

Painkiller Purgatory is an iOS version of the Painkiller franchise that graced PCs and the Xbox earlier in the millennium. Just like its console and PC bretheren, it's a first person shooter, and should promise to be as action-packed as the previous entries in the series. Next up is Anomaly: Warzone Earth from 11 bit studios. This action/strategy game, described as a "reverse tower defense game" has you trying to penetrate the defenses of invading alien hordes. The game is coming not just to the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad, but will be releasing on PC and Mac as well, with a trailer available for those versions of the game:

Also coming up from the ranks of PC/Mac games to iOS is Emberwind, developed by TimeTrap, where you control a gnome named Kindle Elderwood, who has to save Grendale from CandleFinger and his gremlin hordes. That city name is one 'e' from being a future episode of Community. Quiz Climber from Relentless Software is a quiz game that has you competing against friends in online leaderboards, trying to answer more consecutive questions than they can. Storm in a Teacup from Cobra Mobile, developers of the iBomber series, is a platformer that features a vivid storybook art style, as seen from the game's concept art blog.

Feed Me Oil from Holy Water Games is a physics based game that has you trying to get oil from a pipe to a predetermined spot. Color Bandits from Kiai Games is an action game that plays with color, as you try to restore color to the universe. Blobster from Divine Robot is a platformer that puts you in control of a blob that you control by flicking around. Finally, Carnage from Super Fly Studios is a 3D car driving game that has you trying to cause havoc, and dare we say carnage, on the highways by causing massive pileups. While no specific release dates are available yet, the games are promised to be releasing on the App Store in the coming weeks. Until then, check out a sampling of screens from all the upcoming games below.