Wicked Defense v1.1 is out!

[jasonf]

I won't buy a generic First person shooter, 'cos they've been done to death I feel.. they're like platform games in the 90's.

But I believe that Wicked defense adds something new to the genre, it's got tonnes of atmosphere for a start and it doesn't conform to the usual rules or physics we're all used to.

There are a lot of free ones and some of them are fun, but this is a different game in my opinion. it's a lot more graphically intensive than anything you can do in a flash game for a start, the weapons behave in unusual ways and you've got spells you can case to splat the baddies :twisted:

If you can find a free game which offers the same, I'd be interested to know about it and so would the author I think. If for no other reason than to alter their game to make it stand out a little more.

It's true that Indy game developers have a huge battle on their hands to get past the view which some people hold (not yourself I'll add) that anything not written by a big company is of a poor quality and therefore should be free.. I disagree with that mentality, you'll find a lot more innovation in indy games than the big names, probably just because indy developers will take risks in unproven markets whereas companies like Microsoft know they can make shed loads of money with Halo3.. so why bother innovating?.

This leaves the competition with free games to worry about, and some of them are awesome.
I guess in the end, the shareware/commercial game has to add something else which a free game either doesn't or can't. This is the tricky part.. and if someone has the answer, please let me know

Sometimes free games surpass commercial games in terms of quality and gameplay, but I'd say that was the exception rather than the rule. If a small team is making a game commercially, they will pour every ounce they have into it, simply because if they don't, they will not survive. The market is too harsh and gamers are very picky.

What cracks me up is, some gamers will spend £40 on the latest EA Football cloneamattic, £4.50 on a big mac meal and will complain about spending £5-£10 on a game which is a lot of fun to play, took someone months to write and will take a lot longer to complete than the burger ever will :lol:

My 2p

[LP]

I've been looking forward Bytten's review for some time and am gladly surprised to get 92% score.

Thank you guys for your comments! We have planned an update for the next year introducing additional elements like online highscores, non-squared map layout and scripting.

In the meantime we're close to finishing another game title.

[waran]

Ok, I read your answers and from what I understand are you taking me wrong.

First: Yes, Im a causal gamer. Because of this I generally like games like
WickedDefense.
Its right that (popular) commercial games are mostly shooters ... thats
the reason why I dont buy most of them.

However there are damned good commercial games like 'Penumbra'.
Penubra is really great and rocks about anything announced as popular Shooter.
Price is 15€ last time I checked.

Now to WickedDefense: Im not only not buying the sequel (@savage)
but the whole game. Its all about proportionality: Penumbra (hard ass
rocking, 15€) and WickedDefense (quite fun but nothing 'titanic' - 20€).

Of course this is my personal opinion; I consider buying it at the current
discount-price, maybe

P.S: Annother nice OSS-Game: Neverball (icculus.org/neverball)

[jasonf]

Well, I for one am quite glad Wicked Defence is nothing Titanic, The Titanic sank on it's maiden voyage.. (sorry, couldn't help myself)

I hear what your saying. I don't think we took you wrong, I think we just vented a little frustration about the shareware market (that's what I did anyway, It's been a tough week, sorry about that)

On the GreatGamesExperiment, Penumbra: Overture is quoted at $23.59 and the demo is a snip at 115mb, I'm not sure if that includes the whole game, probably not as shooters tend to be heavy on the media. I've tried writing 3D stuff and it's always been in the art department where plans fell on their faces.

Wicked Defence on the other hand is (currently) listed at $9.99 on GGE (promotional offer) but then it was only $20 to start with...so we're really only haggling over change.. The file size is only 20mb, as all of the models are procedurally generated (AFAIK). I've played a few tower defence games and they mostly bored me.. this one kept my interest though, just zooming in and watching the carnage is great fun.. you can see the towers recharging and then letting loose with the mayhem.. in fact, it's a shame that it's possible to play the game zoomed out as you miss so much stuff

I'm downloading the demo for Penumbra right now so I'll be able to see what you mean when comparing to other shooters. From the screen shots, it looks quite nice. But then, we have been quite spoiled with the first person shooter genre with AAA titles (I lose track these days). The days of run around textured CSG level, shoot dumb monsters are long gone. Any team who can seriously compete with other games in the genre these days who aren't a massively funded entity, get my utter respect.

My frustration is that there seems to be a core of vocal gamers who believe that anything not AAA is not worth bothering with, especially with FPS games. I had kids watching me filming footage for Crashblock walk off in disbelief when I told them it wouldn't be on the XBox.. ..like I was wasting my time.

Thankfully, there are a lot of people who really don't get on with First Person Shooters who like something a little more intelligent to whilse a way the odd hour or two. In fact, I had a nice little nuggat of info from the owner of a AAA company working on PS3 titles (You'd know them If I told you who they were).. he told me that it's not the HardCore gamer who's the biggest customer... It's Granny, buying a game for little Tommy.. Seriously. get through to Gran and you're sorted.

I played Wicked Defence again today and I believe it's a game which grows on you. Personally, I couldn't play it all night, but I did lose about an hour and a half to it this evening, which I think is the market they were aiming for.

[WILL]

Hey, glad to hear about the 92 at Bytten! :thumbup:

Personally, I think that Wicked Defense is graphically, one of the most beautiful games I'd seen this past year. I've only got to play it a little bit, but is seems WAY different than most of the Tower Defense games that have been around lately. In fact, there was another one that is up against Jason in the IGF that I think [size=9px](and this is only my opinion)[/size] WD would kick the crap out of visually and from a game mechanics perspective.

And seeing as the 'Sound' got a higher rating than the graphics in the review, I think that once I get the chance, I'll have to go check out the newer version just to hear the music.


About the price, I think that $20 might be a touch high for me as well, but thats because I don't usually have much cash for games and well I'm kinda cheap that way. What can I say.

It does seem to match the market prices though so I'd say it's not really bad that way.


Yuriy, this game needs to be taken to next year's IGF! Or the new version you guys are planning. Seriously!

[jasonf]

I've just played the demo of Penumbra, ... and I think I need to go and have a lie down for a moment...

This is what I'm talking about.. Innovation, story. Atmosphere. This is not a generic FPS, at this point I don't even have a gun.. just a hammer (as far as I can tell.. in the demo, does it end really soon for everyone or do I just suck at it?.. I might play it again to see.. 115mb does seem a lot for something so short.. perhaps there's more) Excellent physics using Newton, amazing sound track.. it's obviously put together by a very tallented team. The atmosphere is brilliant.. I can see why you singled it out as a really amazing example of an Indy game done well. This game will sell bucket loads.

However, comparing this game with Wicked Defense is a little unfair. They are completely different genres with different requirements.

Penumbra sets out to be a scary game. It can only survive by having an engaging storyline, spooky music.. It's an adventure game and they've built in a neat interraction system which works really well with the physics system. It's not a shooter as much as it is an adventure horror game. In this respect, Penumbra achieves its objectives well and deserves to be a success.

Wicked Defence can claim an equal level of success in meeting its objectives. It tries to make add a new perspective to the defense genre. All other defense games have items which the player can easily relate to, Wicked defence forces the player to use their imagination and explore a little.. "I wonder what happens if I give my Wicked Hands tower another weapon?".. the monsters are unique and don't conform to the usual known list of monster like so many other games. Placement and stratergy are very important as are upgrades. The basics are the same as all creep defense games but the way it's handled is so nice that it all sits seamlessly together.

In terms of what they were trying to achieve, they both nail the target in the bulls eye.

The rest is down to personal preference and how cheap one is