version 1.1.5—coming very soon…August 13,2010 1:56 pmOkay, we’ve squeezed in a few changes at the last minute (I know it’s not supposed to be done, but they’re small things, but cool.) We’ve been busy implementing SDKs for various portals and will be updating everyone soon. Some of the cool things we have now are: • Improved AI with 3 different personality types (Normal, Hostile, Cunning) • Random AI setting, so you don’t know which you’re playing against until after the game is over • A few minor optimizations within the code • Small visual enhancements We’re really happy with this latest update. Since we don’t have multiplayer implemented yet, we’re trying to make the AI a little more fun to play with. I have a lot more fun playing as teams now that the AI is a little smarter (although not perfect.) We hope you like what we’ve done, please send us your thoughts on the forums. Update coming soon…new AIAugust 7,2010 10:03 amWe’ve been really busy doing updates and working on new features of the game. With the approval to be on Steam and Direct-to-Drive as well as Greenhouse and other portal sites, we’re gearing up with improved AI, bug fixes and new boards. Multiplayer is still coming along, but it’s proving to be a real pain. The hard part with our multiplayer is the real-time battle sequences. About the AI. We’ve had some really great ideas come from the forums and we’ve decided to implement a new AI, well, actually a few new AIs. You get to choose between NORMAL, HOSTILE or CUNNING. Normal—updated AI we’ve been using, which is a balanced AI…it now plays better as a team member. Hostile—Attack, attack, attack…it doesn’t really want power squares, only to kill everyone on your team. Cunning—This AI is very strategic and likes to win by power squares and strategy. Each new AI has Novice, Skilled, Expert and Insane settings which are now labeled L1, L2, L3, and L4 respectively (we had to do that for space limitations on our screens.) These new features, along with bug fixes will be available as an update to version 1.1.2 soon. We now have Steam!August 4,2010 10:03 amWe’ve been accepted to be on Steam! Yeah! We’ll be implementing their SDK in the next few days, so you Steam people will be very excited! I know we are! IGN’s Direct-to-Drive…July 20,2010 10:09 amWe’ve been talking with and finally accepted on Direct-to-Drive, which is an IGN site. We feel great about being on here! They’ll be running marketing and advertising for us to make a big splash on the site. We’ve even talked about tournaments and other promotional things they’ll do on the site for us. They were pretty jazzed about our game. :) As for the exact date it’ll be on the site, I’ll let you know. Finally on Impulse…June 8,2010 2:34 pmWe’re on Impulse now and doing very well. We are currently #32 in popularity with a 5 out of 5 user rating. We keep playing the game here at “work” and it is still as fun as when we were designing it. We’re trying to get on as many gaming sites as we can, including Steam and D2D…so far, so good, I guess. If you have a favorite, please let us know. We’re getting ready for E3 now…we’ll be going and showing our latest version of the game to press and portals…so hopefully we’ll have many more sites that will distribute our little game. Most of our sales and business has been from word of mouth—our happy customers keep talking about the game and sharing with friends…so keep it up community! We appreciate all the support we’ve been given. Archon:Classic 1.0 for PC out today!April 9,2010 2:24 pmWell, we’ve held on as long as we could…so now we’re going for it! We’re officially releasing our game out into the world. We’ve had an incredibly good response from our PreSales community. They’re really helped us put the finishing touches on the game to make it stable and fun! This version features 4 player, Teams, Free-for-all, 4 AI settings, 3 different modes, Conquest (full version) and many more things…too long to list. It feels like a big weight has been taken off our shoulders with the release of the game…we’ve spent every last effort and penny to make this game the best it could be. We’re really proud of it! We made the game conform and play just like the 1983 classic, thus the name, “Classic.” You have 8 directions to fire, we used sprites and all the rules from that era. With that said, we also added new things to the game, which would appeal to the modern gamer and bring the game up to speed. The things we’ve added were meant to add depth to the already fantastic game, not change it or take away from the core of what makes the game fun. I hope you enjoy the game as much as we do. We’ll still support it with new updates and enhancements as they come along…it’s far from over, as we love this title and would like to see many more versions in this franchise. The game is available for purchase on our site, also GamersGate, Impulse, Xgames and soon to be on Greenhouse and hopefully D2D and Steam (we’re still working on them.) First Day at GDC…March 10,2010 9:59 amWhat a great day! We met a bunch of people, reconnected with old friends and talked about Archon all day. Everyone we talked to was very interested in what we’ve been doing, especially how we’ve tried to handle the Archon IP. We even got a free Droid phone for attending a “Port your C++ game to the android.” That was a nice start to the day…Thanks Google!
We ran into an acquaintance…can’t really call him a friend, because I barely know him, but he’s a friend of the Archon community. We gave him a t-shirt a while ago and he promised to get a picture with it on! Those who know who he is (far right) please comment and enlighten those who don’t know. :)
We ended the day with a great feeling. There are many opportunities on the horizon not only for us at React! Games, but for our great game of Archon. We’ll keep you posted on things as they unfold. React Games at GDC…March 8,2010 9:11 amWe are going to San Francisco, CA this week to attend GDC (Game Developer’s Conference.) It should be a good one…as we are going to talk to a few people about Archon, past, present and future. We’ll be there from Wednesday through Saturday, hobnobbing and rubbing shoulders with the finest people in the industry. I’m really looking forward to it. So far, we’ve had a great response to our game from the people who have bought and played it. We have also showed it to many industry professionals and the response was equally positive. Who knows what GDC will bring?! We’ll see. If anyone is in San Fran and would like to play against us, just let us know and we’ll see if we can arrange something. Oh yeah, we’re having lunch with Paul Reiche III on Friday….he’s invited us to his studio for lunch and a quick tour…and hopefully a quick game of Archon. :) Beta-Build …1720 released…December 16,2009 3:58 pmOur latest beta build, which released today to those who bought it has a bunch of new things in it, including: Secondary Abilities…which means each piece has another fire/ability unique to it. For example, one of the pieces that has previously been pretty weak is now VERY vital on the strategy board. The BANSHEE’s secondary ability is to suck 1 health point per turn from every opponent directly around her on the Strategy Board. Conversely, the VALKYRIE’s ability is to HEAL everyone around her on the Strategy Board…so she’s like a moving Power Square and very important now in the overall strategy of the game. These are the only two that have this ability on the Strategy board…everyone else has something that affects their fighting in the Combat Arena. For example, the Wizard clones himself (there is a possibility of an 8 vs. 8 Combat, but it gets REALLY crazy!) The Sorceress calls down lightning bolts that fry everyone in it’s path. The Basilisk calls forth little snakes to aid it and the Knight has a reflective shield that works on all projectiles, sending them back to their originator. All abilities are very unique to the piece and pretty balanced. We are really excited to hear what everyone thinks about this new mode, which can be turned on and off. Also, there is a switch to turn on and off FRIENDLY FIRE. Play it. It’s well worth the $15 bucks. We’ve been playing for over 6 months (at least 1 game a day) and still don’t get sick of it. Crunch Weekend…December 7,2009 2:16 pmWe worked 25.7 hours Friday (from Friday morning to Saturday morning) to get the latest build finished and out. We put in a bunch of additions to this latest build, which includes: MANY tiny enhancements to the core game, MANY visual effects (it now rains on the dark squares during combat), additional UI enhancements and overall…a really great game. If you haven’t played Archon in a while, pick up a copy and play. We are now diving headfirst into the multiplayer portion of the game, we’ve been doing portions and planning for it…so now it is time to really hit it. I’m hoping it goes as smoothly as everything else in the game. We are at build 3617.1860…it would be a great Christmas gift for anyone! Pre-BETA release tonight…October 30,2009 5:29 pmWe’ve still got a few bugs to work out tonight with the delivery mechanism for the download, but the installer is done, the game is ready…just a few more wrinkles. I should have everything done tonight…For those who’ve bought the game already, a few more hours of patience and you’ll be playing the greatest game ever created! So buy some controllers, if you haven’t got any, and hold on to your seats! Pre-Beta build…October 23,2009 6:07 pmHere is a quick shot of the New Golem, which is just one of the graphical updates we’re doing for the game. We’re really excited about getting this Pre-Beta build out and into the hands of fans around the world. Currently we are only building for XP and Vista, but we’re planning on Mac versions in the future and hopefully Linux.  New Golem character We’re still on target for getting a build out and into the hands of the faithful fans next week. I can’t wait to get feedback on everything. We had our little tournament the other week and learned a lot about how people are playing the game and navigating the menus. We’ve used this data to sharpen the Strategy elements and include other things to make the game easier to get into (for the new player) yet satisfy the Archon buff. We also have something really cool planned for next week (something besides the Beta.) Indie Game Night…October 15,2009 10:57 amWe attended and partially sponsored the quarterly “Indie Game Night” which was hosted by the great folks at Ninja Bee/Wahoo studios. Steve Taylor (Studio Owner) and Greg Squire (Indie Organizer) let us come and show off our pre-Beta build of Archon PC. We took down several machines and had a mini “Archon Tournament!” The first since, well…probably since the game released back in ‘83 (anyone correct me if I’m wrong.) Congrats to Jake Dinkins and Justin Barlow for beating out all the other teams to become our first EVER Archon champions. They got T-shirts for their win. They played through several different boards in our TEAM mode 2 vs. 2. They caught on early to the strategies of doubling up characters and attacking on opposite colored square. It wasn’t an easy victory, but it sure was fun to watch.
We learned many things through this event, it was like a test market/focus group event for us. We payed close attention to how they played, what was unclear, where they tripped up and what we could to better. Thankfully, most of the issues were in the front end design…navigation is a bit unclear in some places and it was good to see that when people got into the game, it was virtually bug free (with very few exceptions.) Thanks again to NinjaBee and Greg Squire to letting us hold our little tournament. It allowed us to see our game in the real-world and see people’s reactions. We had a good mix of new and old school gamers. About half heard of Archon and remember playing it on the C64 or Atari at one point. We’ll take our observations and start changing things around to make it better. Archon:Conquest on App store RIGHT NOW!October 15,2009 2:29 amArchon:Conquest is now on the App store for $0.99. We’ve put a lot of hard work and testing to make this one of the best games around. I still play it when I have a chance and haven’t gotten tired of it. We designed this with the single player in mind, so there is no multiplayer…just you progressing through a series of quests that takes you through several immersive stories revolving around a few characters. Play as Light and Dark as there are 2 Light campaigns and 2 Dark campaigns…each with 15 quests. You encounter 60 different boards that will put your brains and skills to the test. You will have power-ups at your disposal and let me warn you…they are needed. Especially since several quests contain multiple enemies you have to fight at the same time!!! We’ve updated our CONTROLS on the Combat board, so it plays very smoothly! All the complaints concerning the controls have been addressed and now we have one of the best virtual dpads on the iPhone market. Archon:Conquest has a leaderboard system powered by “Plus+.” NGMOCO came out with their Plus+ technology to provide a platform that would be similar to an XBLA experience on the iPhone and they did a great job. It adds a whole new depth to our games, as you can see where you actually rank worldwide. Conquest fits perfectly on the iPhone and will keep you busy for hours. Once you complete a quest, you unlock INSANE difficulty! There are many Awards to get for you people who like that, and the leaderboard system is really nice. Our beta testers (these are good players) have reported it takes them about 4 hours to complete each Campaign, when they really hunker down and try to get the best scores they can (you’re rewarded medals based on your performance — they’ve gotten all golds.) So, you could spend over 12 hours getting through these quests…or you can go through them as fast as you can. I can’t say enough of Conquest…except go buy it, you won’t be disappointed! Phoenix rises from the ashes…October 14,2009 8:20 amTo anyone who has played Archon in the past, there was one piece you either loved or hated…and that’s the Phoenix. Most people I’ve talked to say this was the one piece that was way underpowered, even though she held a high ranking in the lineup (opposite of the much feared Dragon.) There are many who consider the Phoenix a ‘throw away’ piece, used only to whittle down an opposing piece…
Well, those days are over. We’ve spend the last several months working and reworking the pieces per team and have reached a perfect balance. The Phoenix will now strike fear in the hearts of opposing forces and takes it rightful place beside the Wizard, opposite the Dragon. She (I think the Phoenix has to be a “her”) is an awesome creature to behold, especially when she reaches a “level 3″ on boards that allow leveling. We’ve been play testing both the iPhone and PC for a while now and have taken all the comments from the forums, emails and App store into consideration and have made a perfect mix. This, I believe, is the ultimate Archon experience…which has been long awaited by fans the world over. I’m not just saying this because I’m the owner of the studio making the game…but because I am one of the biggest fans of this game, and have been since the day I loaded it up on my Atari 800 (it was from a 5 1/4 floppy.) The work is hard, but fun and well worth it. Our 4 player games last about an hour because we have to really think about strategy now (I’m playing against one of the best Archon players in the world.) We all get beat by Brad (our lead designer), but most of the time, we are ganging up on him during combat. Tomorrow Pre-sales will go live and we have a special treat for those who buy early. I’ll have that announcement later today. PC layout for Combat…October 8,2009 11:31 amSince we’re doing everything with HD in mind, we have a lot of lateral room to play around with. So we’ve added a few new things to the PC version (design-wise.) See the screenshot below:
We have the players name along with a nifty (huge) recharge indicator. We’ve need to really make this big, because you need a quick read when you’re battling 3 other people. It gets really hectic during combat…especially when you accidently kill your teammate and have to go it alone! We’ve also put in a faint “recharge” timer so you know how long before you’ll be able to fire (it fills up with a subtle grey, then pops to Green.) I’ll have more to show as I get it finished. Archon for the PC…October 7,2009 10:09 amWe’ve been so busy…I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last entry. Well, it’s official…we’ll be releasing the PC version soon. We’ve been playing it for the last couple of day and it’s been GREAT, AWESOME, FUN, and all those other wonderfully descriptive words. 4 player definitely adds an intensity to an already intense game during combat. Image being the Djinni, and you’re entering battle with a level 3 Dragon (he has triple shot), a Troll and a Wizard. I found myself trying to hide in a corner and letting them duke it out, until I hear “HE’S HIDING! GET HIM!” Then all three of them turn on me. For those who’ve played the board game “RISK”, there can be a lot of similarities as far as truces and alliances being formed during gameplay. I also found myself in a battle with 2 knights…I was a Dragon and thought, “Hah, 2 Knights on a grey square…easy!” That was before they expertly herded me into a corner and hacked me to death….Oohhh the fun of 4 player games. We have “Teams” or “Free for All”, along with AI…so if there are only 3 people playing, 2 can be on a team and the leftover player simply grabs an AI for his teammate (and selecting INSANE for his setting.) There are many other surprises in store for the PC, such as various new boards, new abilities, etc. I don’t have any screenshots yet, mainly because the TEMP art is so ugly…but that will change soon. We’ve decided to start pre-sales from our site OCT 15th, so tell everyone you know to buy the game so you can play against each other. Achievements…September 3,2009 9:00 amWe’re just finishing up our “Achievements” list for Archon. Some of them are pretty fun, some are hard, but most are easy. We’re finding that in one game, a person will get 5, 6 even 8 achievements from the list we have. In a game like Archon, you could possibly target a few achievements, because there are so many pieces and the games can be long…but come on…8 in one game?! We’ve got to fix that. So, I thought a good place to turn for ideas would be the community. Who better to ask for help than the people playing the game? So, people…What would make a really good achievement? I mean a REALLY hard one? Maybe even one that nobody can get…like: “Annihilate the Dark team by only using 1 Knight.” or, “Win a game in under 1 minute.” We have a list of about 20 or so…but some are really easy. Let me know your thoughts on our forums. Click here to enter your idea. Thanks and I look forward to your ideas! Archon 1.7 submitted to App Store…September 1,2009 11:57 amSorry it’s been a while since this update…we’re hard at work! We submitted the last update 1.7 two weeks ago and we’re still waiting. They came back with a small issue that had to be fixed, but I’m hoping it will be available soon. Mainly so you can experience some fixes that have been a long time coming. A HUGE fix we implemented in this latest update is with the controls. One of the biggest complaints we have (and every other game on the iPhone) is the controls. Where we erred was with the firing input. I think the Dpad works just as well as the best virtual Dpads on the iPhone, and the firing mechanism is simple…just touch the right side of the screen. The problem we discovered was the iPhone was confusing the ‘firing’ touches with ‘pinching’ and since we didn’t support pinching in combat, it would ignore the touch…hence the piece wouldn’t fire. Sorry…our fault…but it’s fixed now with the 1.7 update. Also, we’ve included a new board called “Invictis.” It implements “Power-ups” during combat along with special Power Squares during Strategy that give other abilities (see image below.)
Color is very important on this board. You can see on this Strategy board, the new look of Power Squares. They each have a different number, which affects a different ability of each character. Orange=Movement of the character, Red=Weapon and Green=Health. So, landing on a Power Square with a Red dot could give you a triple shot, or a more powerful shot or even a faster shot. Once you land on this new Power Square, the ability it gives you will stay the rest of the game…so it’s a different way of leveling up, like in Ascension.
In Combat, you’ll randomly have other Power-Ups appear throughout the course of the game. We’ve kept the color the same as the Strategy Board, so you know Red affects your weapon, Green affects your Health and Orange your speed.
So, This new board offers a whole different type of Strategy than previous ones. And the best part is it’ll be available to play through Multiplayer, when we get that finished (around the corner.) We’re close to finishing Bluetooth and let me just say…there are LOTS of surprises around the corner! Multiplayer is a blast, the game is more robust than ever and next update, I’ll talk about Multiplayer and the 1 player Campaign we’ve finished. Your thoughts on Ascension…August 12,2009 12:17 pmThe new update for Ascension has been out for a little bit, it’s getting TONS of downloads so I’m curious to see what you think about it? Sound off in our forums http://forums.reactgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1071 We really like this board and the different strategies involved. For example, your flying units are extremely important and every DEATH is important because you know it is leveling up somebody. No longer can you afford to simply throw your knights or goblins away in suicidal combat! Also, the Phoenix is truly a Dragon hunter, especially when he gets to level 3. It is our new favorite board. |
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