Well, if by “rescue” you mean “eat and then stomp the tree into the ground”, then this is an accurate headline for a slightly more mundane but much more significant event, which is the release of Revenge of the Titans 1.4! This is a tweaky bugfixing sort of release that addresses all the pesky issues that made it into the slightly rushed Mars release, and is 1,000,000 times much more betterer. The Saturn release won’t suffer these problems, oh no. That’s because we’re going to take a little bit longer over Saturn to make sure it’s not so broken this time. Expect Saturn (the 1.5 release) to be in approximately 6 weeks time. On Saturn you can expect to find rather irritating flying Titans that drop bombs. In the meantime, download v1.4 because it’s a great improvement on 1.3.
Download Links
What’s Fixed
- Fixed: difficulty calculation wrong way around
- Fixed: 50%/25% typo in building/research description for Silos
- Fixed: Mouse speed not persisted between sessions
- Fixed: Mars boss won’t die (general gidrah problem: when told to die they should die)
- Fixed: hotkeys suppressed when screen becomes unblocked until key is released
- Fixed: ESC from menu quits game instead of simply closing the menu!
- Fixed: spider attack sound
- Fixed: Assertion failure: removing a cooling tower
- Fixed: Can lay factory nowhere near crystals if move mouse fast enough
What’s Changed
- Allow barricades to squash trees, cars, etc
- Adjusted monetary value of Mars gidrahs up a little
- Crystals now spread out randomly
- Decoy now costs $2500
- ESC key works on research screen (and RETURN does NEXT LEVEL)
- Increased fire rate of droids a little
- Minimum range for rocket launchers
- Only show full address on first registration
- Reactors now only $500
- Stopped boss from being knocked back or easily stunned
- Spread crystals out more depending on research difficulty & attempts
- Tweak rush difficulty
- Tick queens spawn slighly more ticklets when they pop
Your Thoughts Appreciated About…
I mooted a little thought with Chaz earlier on… the gist of which is this: we’ve been working on Revenge of the Titans for, hmm, two and a half years now, and we’d like to see the back of it so we can do something even more utterly cool, like Minecraft perhaps, but with blackjack, and hookers. So I pondered this question:
What if we ditched Titan, the “world”, and made the moons of Saturn be the last “world”, ending with Titan?
And then we add the Endless and Survival modes to make up for the missing 10 levels. I’m not sure how much more we could add to the game in Titan without possibly making it feel a little… stretched, if you see what I mean. Apart from flying Titans that drop bombs, there were going to be Titans that actually shot back, and, er, that was about it, for things I was going to add in Titan itself. Perhaps we should just have shooty gidrahs on the Saturn levels already?
The Saturn levels are already going to take as long to actually physically play through as the whole of Earth, Moon and Mars combined — the levels get longer and longer to make some real epics — so would we really lose anything significant here? I know that as a gamer I’d be thinking, “More levels! More levels!” but … and it’s a big but… I know I’d probably also be thinking, “…but the new game modes would be more fun really.”
Any thoughts on what to do? Would you rather Endless/Survival modes instead of 10 more levels? Do you insist on both? Do you want us to start writing another even cooler game?
hmm tried twice now and am still getting version 1.3. Random question do reactors improve the range of decoys? If not why has the price skyrocketed?
I say both, buttt I think you should take a break from this, and make something else if you like, maby let us realy good fans you know like me, betel I dont know other people to help beta test the new game…
hey this is a great opportunity to advertise the revenge of the titans channel, hurmmm… im going to see it I can rename it.
I have decided to move the irc channel, the name rott has been nagging at me from the start, the channel is now called #titan
I will leave #rott up to notify everyone about the channel change
thanks for the new update!!
another thought i had today – the titan bosses could be a bit more intelligent so that they can get past the tactic of dropping a single concrete or steel block directly in front of them which preoccupies them and slows them down. instead of attacking the block, they should go around . otherwise way too easy
Yeah i duno if you forgot to change the version number or i’m not getting the right download but version number remains 1.3
Content delivery network cache was still delivering 1.3 .. try again now, it should have refreshed.
Have just downloaded 1.4 so we’ll see how it fairs….
As for the question about less levels vs survival mode etc, then the simple answer is if the levels on Saturn really do take as long to complete as Earth,Moon and Mars all together… 0_0
…then maybe having Titan as a world itself would indeed be stretching it (and I’ve already mentioned about not wanting the game to be diluted!!) unless of course that world is just one single level – or maybe two at a push…. the first to establish a base of operations, and the last to take it to the Titans and shove it up their…. whatever it is that they have π
So, some other game modes would probably be a good trade-off, it sounds like you and Chaz are becoming a little fatigued,but then 2.5 years on a single project can do that.
I’d be really interested to see just how you’ll top this game!
I’ve already thrown down my enemy ideas. I spend a lot of time thinking about game mechanics any way as a hobby and as a profession. I think if you’re open to discussion we could add some extra fun features to fill out the remaining levels and we’d keep offering feedback for tweaks and balance.
How about an enemy that has hardened armour designed to defend against rockets and mines but the tiny droids are able to get in under it and shoot between the plates?
Or a boss type that circles the base like a giant sand worm and you have to trick it into eating a blast mine, possibly by setting it next to a decoy beacon.
btw.
I think the enemy rush thing at the end of a level is a bit unnecessary when you have a perfectly good fast forward button on the side if you want to mop up the stragglers. Also could you make it so that clicking on a silo collects all the money in the area? Silos are for storing things right? Only makes sense.
Oh, I’ve just installed 1.4 over my previous version and went back to the moon boss where it failed to die again. This only happens on the Windows version and not the Mac version. Gonna try uninstalling and reinstalling again.
Nope, Moon boss still wont die
Okay, got to the mars boss on the mac and it also doesn’t die in version 1.4
Saving and resuming a game in this state causes the program to crash
New patch seems to have fixed the problem of undying bosses on the mac. π
as I said before I want you guys, cas and chaz, to do titan (the world) because I want to take on the titans armed to the teath in weapons and I want the other modes too since they seem fun, also are you going to put base versus base in the revenge of the titans game, or include it when you buy revenge of the titans.
I will be dissapointed if I have to pay extra for it, but then thats just cause I dont have moneys π
and also, as I said before, if you guy need a break, wheather or not that meens going to canada :3 for some r+r or working on a differrent game.
and again… as I said before maby there is a couple spcial people that would help beta test the game.
I say do the Titan world even if it’s just one level for a good ending, but also have the survival/endless wave type mode which at the end of each wave you get to go to the upgrade screen to spend your cash. That would be perfect for replayability!
I second that. It would be great to be able to have an upgradable survival mode.
How about a network-mode were all players face the same enemy’s to see who can withstand the longest.
Or a code for a certain wave so you can repeat it and give it to your friends. So you can compare scores.
Saturn levels are on that planet’s moons, right? So we’re skipping having levels on the actual gas giants? How about having the final level on Pluto then, as perhaps just one big boss fight? Even though poor Pluto isn’t considered a planet anymore, I think that would round it off nicely.
Then I found it rather strange to name drop Minecraft. It’s a game I personally would love to play, but I refuse to pay a monthly fee to a person I have no idea if he’s about to shut his servers down tomorrow or not, especially since it is a game about building and it should be expected that you’d want to save your creations locally so you can open your laptop wherever to show them off… anyway, sorry about the rant, but what I found strange about you mentioning it is that I can’t really see your art style working within a game of creation, since everything would be so heavily colored by your (very unique) art that at least I would not get any sense of ownership from it.
Just my two cents…
If the enemy base was on pluto it wouldn’t be called revenge of the titans… Titan is a moon
Ah, Titans from Titan… silly me not making that connection…
However, there’s a good explanation for that: Saturn is currently in the MIDDLE of the map screen, indicating that there are supposed to be something in that void to the right.
also there’s no monthly fee for minecraft
I think I confused it with the game Love, which is basically the same thing but subscription based.
Minecraft’s not a subscription game! It’s a one time payment. You can’t go wrong – it’s just brilliant fun and value for money.
Anyway, you’d be surprised what we can come up with…
Even if there isn’t a subscriptiong to Minecraft (my bad apparently), my argument is still valid:
It’s a game where you create stuff hosted on some unknown guy’s server which can be pulled down at any time.
I will not invest any time and money in something where I create things I cannot keep or show off whenever I please (ie locally).
(For the record, this argument does not exactly apply to MMO games, since sharing experiences with others is more important than what you create there, but I do own a World of Warcraft figure print in order to actually get to “keep” my character.)
yes you can where have you been oh thats right notch hid that…
1 there is single player mode where you can save and load your creations but its a randomly generated map and have to load a premade one for flatgrasses and stuff
and with the wom client you can dump the map file on multiplayer.
Single player is local and also known as infdev as you can walk in a straight line forever and never reach the end
and when you buy it, the non crap versions become available
not that creative is crap, just the public survival
Are there any plans to improve the upgrade menu? It just seems strange that you have no idea what your going to unlock when you upgrade something.
Don’t know… it’s sort of as complex as it can get and still be simple enough to use. I think what we need is a comprehensive web page describing the tech-tree which people can browse at their leisure. Maybe Chaz can come up with one. Or maybe someone here can!
Here’s the data: research.xml
cool, so that is how you make the disruptor
A-ha, no wonder I never get the multi-blaster until way late!
*starts new game*
All you need is for the item descriptions to have the following format, as an example:
—
Fusion Reactor
[Description]
Requires: Particle Physics, Nuclear Fusion
Leads to: Capacitor
—
You’d need to incorporate scrollbars into the item description to fit it all in, of course.
I second this. It would make things a lot more user friendly.
I usually don’t buy games that don’t have a high replay value. This is a tower defense game, so a survival/endless/random mode is a must. When you implement that I will buy it and i’m sure that many others will also do the same.
dude… its not a tower defence its a rts get it right :3
much different.
personally I would rather have new modes then titan. Medals and new modes sound very interesting.
The new modes are definitely going in.
In the meantime, I just re-uploaded a tweaked 1.4 – hopefully the “boss doesn’t die” bug has been fixed. While I was at it, I made little ticklets a tiny bit more vicious π
I agree that, especially if the individual levels on the moons of Saturn will be more epic, you don’t need a whole separate world (in the sense of ten levels) for Titan β but it might be a nice touch to have a separate world (i.e. level select) screen for the very last level, or however many were actually going to be on Titan.
I’m quite excited about the other modes, and I’ll echo the comments from earlier that, if you do include non-campaign modes, you take some of the randomness back out of the campaign maps β save completely random levels for the other modes, keep the campaign maps fairly random but give each one an overall shape so that it’s possible to recognize individual levels by looking at them, “Oh, crap, it’s this level…”
I would love an oh crap its this level feeling while playing :3
And thats a perfect idea, random survival, survive seemingly endless hordes on randomly generated levels, for as many levels as you can survive. brilliant.
*pleads on his knees* PLEASE HAVE A HARDCORE MODE PLEASSSEEEE. *gets up*
Ok im done, but realy needs one to satisfy people like indie gamer.
Hardcore would be unlocked after beating the game.
Did everyone get that update message in the game? π
I did thats why I came up here to see what it was, what was it? just saying what the fix was for?
OH I get it now, it was unclear before, how did you get it to do that? Well that was a good idea, just I didnt find it clear at first.
Hrrm…if you want to cut the game short and add an endless/survival mode, then at LEAST include some form of free-play/zen mode where you can have a ton of money…
I love strategy games that let you struggle in a main mode, forming very specific strategies revolving around limited resources, THEN let you (usually after you beat the game), try a version where resources are virtually unlimited, but it’s a Survival situation, where the enemies get stronger each wave. Suddenly it’s not about efficiency or conservation, it’s about finding out what is the best in a given situation, REGARDLESS of price. Spamming things all around might work for awhile, and so will reusing your previous strategies…but to get really far in these types of modes you generally have to rethink everything. For example, if money’s not an issue, do you just build walls of turrets? Do you line all the paths ? What works best?
Hey, was reading what you guys said about pointing your development towards a new game rather than more levels…
I can imagine being in you’re position that you’d want to move on now, i think saturn (described in the scale that you mentioned) would be enough for most, then looping and/or adding endless skirmish modes or something would let people play the game in all possible combinations till their heart is content… Personally I feel like wanting to do more with building the bases, trying different designs and messing about, – i suppose that’s partly derived from playing the old C&C games which were as slow and long as you made them, allowing the player to do this.
I asked in an earlier blog entry if multiplayer would ever be a possibility in RoTT, which Cas kindly answered, I think it would be good for you guys to try making a multiplayer game… it makes it so much more re-playable, more fun, and makes the players more of a part of the game. Also rather than labouring away – crafting each and every details of individual games that are played, instead you hand over the details of how a game plays out to the participants (of course they don’t need any programming), you lay down the initial environment variables and let it unfold… it’s like writing a generative algorithm with a random seed for automatically creating a forest of unique trees vs designing each tree’s uniqueness by hand. Yes i stole that from somewhere π
I hadn’t seen minecraft before you mentioned it, but it’s similar area of multiplayer gaming that i have imagined before.
Actually what John Carmack mentioned in his presentation of the next ID Tech engine sparked ideas for this kind of gaming for me… he was describing how designers could work on details of a map simultaneously in real time so it’s more sort of cooperative, you could design stuff in one place then go to another area… come back and find that someone else had added to what you had done before.
The most fun i’ve had in any game is where i end up creating things with others… but things that are not an intended part of games play… I don’t think i can take all of the credit but i started making towers out people in a free game called Urban Terror (basically a modified IDTech3 based game), by running multiple clients on the same computer then making things (using the players as pieces) People naturally start joining in and it gets crazy π
heres one i did with a load of other people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-5uITrIGHw …i’m the ‘n'(s) and some other guy kindly recorded the video.
So yeah… what i’m trying to say is, if you can make something that’s multiplayer, creative, cooperative, open and yet also simple – it could be a winner. (but not like 2nd life or sims or whatever – not a fan here)
*is a supporter of base versus base*
It would start in the middle, and there would be a 50/50 chance on who was attacker first
attackers place waves of troops and robots and defenders place turrets.
When all of the attackers sources are out, or they choose to stop attacking to preserve money/ resources its the defenders turn to attack and the attackers defend in the same area. When the attackers win the defenders get pushed back in their lines and still have to defend.
That keeps on going untill one team captures all areas.
π the irc is so dissapointing right now, noone resides there π
I just saw what looked like a crater formation of mountains on the moon… and it was the first time I saw that… which made me wonder… why don’t I see it more often? I forgot to take a screenshot, but it was very nice looking… a three quarter circle with mountains fading out along the opening…
Are the blaster target priorities working right?
I just watched a multiblaster dump it’s entire ammo load on a single armored unit, only to reload and do it AGAIN – while the heavier blasters cheerfully picked off all the small gids beside it.
Hmmm, not sure. Problem is, they still can only choose the first target that wanders into their range… and then when they’ve selected a target they don’t let it go until it’s out of range or dead. So the algorithm that’s in there works when a turret suddenly finds itself with more than 1 potential target – say, it’s first target actually dies – but this doesn’t seem to happen much in real life. I might have to tweak it.
First, general feedback:
Ever since the very first version, I’ve never ever researched any blaster tech at all, since all I’ve ever needed was this:
http://www.eobet.com/temp/titans-moon.png
(Note the amount of cash. One or two lasers per level always lasts until you get missile launchers, then I switch to them, and again only one or two per level needed, if you are surrounded, four.)
Then, I think I’ve found another difficulty bug that has got something reversed:
http://www.eobet.com/temp/titans-mars.png
What I clearly observed here was that the creeps home in on the turret that has ammo, and run away from the turret that is reloading! The entire swarm exhibited this behavior for the entire level, which made it extremely amusing, and easy…
Rockets now have a minimum range which kinda limits its usefulness, I tend to use disrupters more now cos they have a nice radius and hits all things equally well.
Looks like I will be nerfing lasers a bit soon then π And possibly disruptors, a little. Each weapon should be effective only in certain situations, not all situations.
I liked the lasers when they used to sweep cos that was a nice effect. I wouldn’t mind if the lasers were weaker but swept again. Also it’d be cool if the missiles had a barrage effect where they unload on the first enemy they see and then have to reload like them T34 Calliope rocket launchers from world war 2. If you make lasers less good against bosses that would be fine cos you can win most boss fights with just one laser or a laser and a couple assault cannons for the spider boss.
While you’re at it can you make robots more effective? (or just much cheaper) I find it cheaper and more effective to use disruptors for clearing gidlets
Sorry, I meant capacitors for clearing gidlets.
Notice how I place rockets well beyond the steel barriers… it’s not limiting at all… only if they break through… and they never get the chance the way I spread the barriers out.
Now, if there were jumping (or flying) creeps, that would be different (and it seems that there will be on Titan).
This version is a lot more difficult than previous if you’re using ‘conventional’ weaponry. The Gids are pretty touchy and are very willing to switch directions, which is good. I feel like I’m using the map layout more.
Had an unpleasant surprise when one queen dropped a ton of gidlets on me, which brings me to the other point: droids.
I’m guessing a lot of their poor performance is due to the aforementioned targeting priority issues. They can’t prioritize and attack gidlets when they’re busy bouncing blasters off of armored units. They also don’t seem to make any attempt to chase gidlets down.
A different problem is the escalating price hike for successive factories. I can understand why you wouldn’t want a ton of factories spamming droids for balance or performance reasons, but that price hike is also applying to REPLACEMENTS as well.
If you lose your first factory (or silo/autoloader) the game is charging 2x the price for the second one. 5000 credits is pretty steep.
On further examination, I think the droids do turn to run after gidlets if they’re not already busy attacking something, so scratch what I said there.
Droids are pretty crap overall. I think they need a rethink and an overhaul. Perhaps have a global unit cap so that there wont be a need for the price hike. Placing more factories wont increase the total number of max droids but make them come out faster and at different locations. That would fix the horrendous cost of using them and also fix the performance issue of having a million droids on the scene.
Also, I reckon there should be a research tree that causes droids to explode when stepped on. Maybe have it applied to droids when you research micro mines and improved blast radius research options. Cos currently I never even bother getting robotics because the overall cost of that tree is too expensive and not nearly as effective as other methods of dealing with gidlets.
Coming from having just lost a game to the first gidlets encountered on Mars despite having a droid factory powered by three reactors right next to my HQ and $20,000 worth of other defences, it seems there are three problems with droids:
1) Rate of fire. Seriously, to deal with that kind of threat, it needs to be close to that of multiblasters.
2) Speed. As a rapid response unit, they aren’t exactly very… rapid, and are usually caught well out of position.
3) Priorities. They need to switch targets from whatever behemoth they’re currently fruitlessly pelting as soon as gidlets spawn anywhere on the map and immediately hunt them down. Most gidlets seem to get through simply because nearby droids just ignored them.
Droids will be receiving plenty of attention in the Saturn release.
Well done on the RPS coverage! That’s where I picked up on this game when they first wrote about it ages ago before there was a demo out.
So, Cas/Chaz, when are we getting more Titan avatars like I requested and even got mailed back to? I mean like these:
http://www.puppygames.net/images/09/revenge-of-the-titans-character-1.gif
Especially of the new Mars-based Gidrahs.
Also, I want that damn Toccata and Fugue inο»Ώ D minor remix from the trailer. π
And the OST! Even for money…
Ah – one thing that bothered me since day one. Can you make crystal deposits deplete visually with time instead of being static and then simply disappearing (I believe that’s how it is, or if it isn’t, the changes are not apparent enough).
I like how you mentioned Minecraft in the previous post. I think Chaz visited one of my Minecraft servers. ^^
Ah, sorry, my thoughts on Titan.
For me there are two options: if you feel that you are running out of ideas, release the game without Titan at all and take your time with it and release it later as i.e. a cheap content pack – continued support a la Valve! It would boost the sales long after the game’s release. =)
Also, this way you would have the time to come up with something truly original for it.
Second option would be: make Titan a semi spin-off, reusing parts of the engine and graphics and so on. Just a random idea – on Titan Humans would actually be the invaders, wouldn’t they? How about turning things around and making the player spawn/upgrade Titans to take down Earthling encampments on their beloved planet?
Both options could work if they were implemented into RotT BUT that would push back the game’s true release, which would have you working for free for some time, preorders notwithstanding. Also, it could end up being half-assed despite the time it would take to code.
Considering Titans have become somewhat of a franchise I’d really prefer the big(ish) content pack/stand alone title options. =)
Anyways: I would hate to see Titan simply ending up as only another (even final) level – this would be the most half-assed solution of them all and kind of anticlimactic. :-\
Don’t worry, we’ve come up with a bunch of ideas for nasty gidrahs π A few other people have thought of them too. I think Titan will introduce, apart from gidrahs that shoot back, gidrahs that mine your crystals (and probably spew out gidlets while they’re doing so). And that’s probably as difficult as we should get I think! The general consensus is to do Titan properly so we will, and then put endless and survival in afterwards.
BTW, we already pretty much work for free, unless we’re going to see a roughly 10x increase in sales. We’re 5.9% (881/15000) of the way to becoming independent developers. We need another 14,200 sales to make it!
Ahhh, please don’t release new DLC that you have to Pay for!!! If you do that I won’t buy any more games from you in the future. I hate DLC unless it’s free stuff. It’s the exact reason why I stopped perusing Positech games! I was all for Gratuitous Space Battles in the beginning but cliffski turned me right off the game when I came across the extra Pay For content that were really nothing more than bonus mods (not modes) for the game. And now he’s supposedly coming out with a campaign for the game (which it should have come with originally or eventually) only it’s gonna cost even more to own that as well… nope, never again. Won’t be buying for Positech if that’s how he’s gonna make his games, I’ve grown tired of the crappy add-ons that really don’t warrant extra spending.
So please, if you’re going to entice more people into buying the game, let them know that there will be added DLC content at a later date for FREE. Otherwise you’ll turn this and many other customers heads away from your games. Pay for DLC might interest a few die hards, but I would much rather have a complete game the first time I pay for it!
This game won’t have any DLC. But just to address your point about “stuff you shouldn’t have to pay for” and so on with Positech… Cliff works full time on his games, as in, long hours, every day, and he has to pay for artists and sound people to do all sorts of stuff. The stuff he adds to his games after the first version is very very expensive to produce. If you can’t pay for it… he can’t do it. It really is that simple. He’s got to eat, so’s his artists.
All those WoW players etc.. they’re all paying constantly for a huge team of developers to keep on adding DLC to the game (not to mention the server costs and bandwidth etc). And so it goes. We’re all probably going to have to eventually switch to making online-only games with DLC, because we probably can’t afford to keep working for nothing, y’see?
does flying Titans imply also flying Earth aircraft/robots???
bug report: placing a robot factory in the preparation stage of the level activates the alien waves (I think this is only supposed to happen after placing a refinery)
No, it also happens when you don’t have enough money to buy a refinery, or if you haven’t yet researched refineries.
I love your games. The graphics guy is a genius. Really.
Minor bug: When buying the game with someone else’s credit card, the in-game registration displays the card holder’s name rather than the registrant’s.
My knee-jerk reaction to the “how should development proceed? (we’re tired of making the game)” request for comments is to suggest you do whatever it takes to refine the strategic aspects of play. I haven’t gotten deep into the latest release, but I’d like to be puzzled as to how to win a level, rather than victory being only a matter of frenzied time management.
yeah about the credit card thing, it shows my dads name while I wish it showed my name π
I can fix that although it does involve a bit of fiddling on your part. In fact it should be possible to get that right at the point of purchase … I will check with BMT (it should be possible to have separate “Registered to” and “Billed to”).
allright whenever you have time
omg I just realized
I want a revenge of the titans windows soundpack π
nuff said :3
could anyone make one, cas could you get me sounds? pleasssseeee
a titan mouse pack!
damn I want this bad now π
I’m having some visibility problems on a few of the maps.
Early moon missions (like 11) have the red turret range circles so subdued I can barely see them while placing or mousing over. You’d think they’d pop out in that dark area, it’s seems the map lighting or style is affecting the circle.
The ghosts, on the first two maps they show up in particular (28-29?), are exceedingly difficult for me to spot. I can sometimes see their movement when things aren’t hectic, but usually I only notice them once they’re already attacking and are lit up brightly, which feels a little mean-spirited (PUN!).
They are much easier to spot on the last level for whatever reason, but that doesn’t say much.
OMG
im having a hard time breathing after seeing the spider dudes
*HUHHH HAA HUHHA HUUHAH*
I tried version 1.4 and it worked finally! Yay! You now have my credit card number to do with as you please. Well, okay. Not really. I did preorder though. So I guess you can do with it as you please, up to and including $13.67. π I figure I can’t give you much higher praise than actually buying the game.
Thank you very much π Only another 14,085 people to convince now.