It's been almost exactly one full year since I started development, and this is unquestionably the biggest game I've tried to produce under my one-man "Random Software" hobby label. The final package, fully compressed and encoded for release on a cell phone, is 24MB; anything beyond 10MB is considered sufficiently big that you need to connect your phone to a computer to download it, so this lands squarely in the Epic category as far as cell phone games are concerned.
I'm releasing Praetor exactly as my wife wisely suggested: rather than finishing the full hundred battles immediately, I've done a solid 25--including the first mini-boss and completing the entire Earth Magic saga. If this Episode 1 proves popular enough to justify the extra effort, I'll push ahead with Episode 2 where we wander into the lands where Water Magic prevails--and then on to Air and Fire if my enthusiasm stays strong.
So, congratulations to me! All three readers of my blog can rejoice. With projects that take a year to complete, it's pretty rare to get one to this stage of completion--and that feels pretty good. I'll post again if/when it finally shows up in the Zune marketplace.
/me rejoices
ReplyDelete/me is sad that there is no Mac version
Congratulations to you, Been Following for Awhile, it's nice to watch the progress of a fellow maker of worlds.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. Praetor's getting great reviews so far; approaching a hundred purchases and a lot more trial downloads. So cutting out all those features for the first release seems to have worked out okay. :)
ReplyDeleteI've played Praetor off and on for a while now. I finally managed to make it to the end of the trail mode and I was impressed with the level of challenge this game provided. I'm happy to say you earn my .99 cents for it! This is one of the better games I've played on my WP7 and look forward to its continued development.
ReplyDeleteSweet--thanks! I've been making some good progress in the next episode. Allies, for example, now work: Zalu's the first one you get, but he won't be the last. An ally works like a combination of Equipment and Creature: if you put an ally in your deck, then he shows up on the battlefield with you as soon as a battle starts, but you only get one of him: if he does, he doesn't come back until the next battle.
ReplyDeleteI've also got swamps working properly. (Remember that the next episode is about Water magic, so there's a lot of swampiness involved.) Swamps slow you down and if you stop altogether you can get a disease that will eventually kill you. Lots of good stuff coming up.
Congrats Richard!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you finally released Praetor.
-Rob A>
http://www.cartocopia.com
Awesome game, I've played through it with every class now, and its amazing how that one point in a different stat makes all the difference in the strategy, best (and cheapest) game I've purchased on my wp7. Would have paid more for a game this solid btw
ReplyDeleteRob, thanks! For my readers (all three of them!), Rob's the talented artist who put together the world map that you explore. In the next upgrade I've faded out the oceanic parts to show a subtle animated water motion, which makes the land parts really stand out. It's just a terrific piece of material to work with.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm hoping to have Episode 2 released by the end of June; it will show up as a free upgrade for you, and your existing save games can simply pick up where you left them off. (There's also a way to simply start at the Water campaign if you want to.)
Hi I just read all of your blog on your game. pretty cool. I'm developing a mmofps that is server based. Man with all the work you did I know I'm going to have a hell of a time creating my game. I wish you all the best for your game and hope you get more than 3 readers too! Definitely a fun read.
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