What are your three favorite tower defense games on the iOS platform (other than OfficeAttacks! of course)? Aside from these tower defense titles, what iOS games do you feel had the most influence on you while developing OfficeAttacks!?
Eli: Without drowning you in PR euphemisms, we really feel we’re doing a lot with OfficeAttacks! that hasn’t been done before. To that end, like a journalist writing a review, we tried to avoid following any similar content too closely, instead looking at the gaming landscape at large to draw on trends we felt were exciting for players.
Nonetheless, we’re massive fans of tower defence (no kidding, right!?), and weren’t tuning out the genre by any means. Listing three is difficult, but in no particular order I’d certainly put Tiny Heroes, Plants vs. Zombies, and Cursed Treasure towards the forefront for different reasons. Tiny Heroes really nails the sense that you’re not just plopping towers down and watching things work, but rather, you’re setting up an elaborate minefield of booby traps; you have to consider how spikes might slow an enemy down, and what would be best to place near or after them to combo-off for the most damage. It really avoids that sense of monotony in favor of an “all hands on deck” approach. Plants vs. Zombies has tons of “juice,” which is a quality we talk about a lot here. That sense that each sound and animation and sprite is something you want to touch, or something which evokes a feeling of happiness or nostalgia. And with Cursed Treasure, there’s a really surprising depth to the enemy flow, and to each individual enemy’s place in the set of waves. The things you’re fighting off become real characters, and how they’re presented is filled with a lot of thought.
Individually, those are all qualities we knew we wanted OfficeAttacks! to have.
On a broader scale, though, there are a lot of developers we admire for reasons related indirectly to OfficeAttacks! – I almost feel guilty singling them out. Nimblebit, as an example, with games like Pocket Planes, embody to us the way freemium content should work. Players should feel rewarded with the base game to the point where paying is something they want to do, rather than feeling like payment is traded for fun. Dave Marsh of Nimblebit and I talked at GDC, and he told me about the way that they implement their “Bux” currency (or any virtual dollars) dead last, and always ask themselves “is this fun?” And as simple as that sounds, I’d argue that too many freemium developers treat the space as a business model above all else, to the point where there’s no impetus to give players a sense of fun. With OfficeAttacks!, payment is not meant to be catharsis, or relief from waiting. If you buy ChaChings, or tower parts, or packs of extra power-ups, you should feel rewarded with what you can now go and do.
And without rambling on too long, I’d say GetSetGames and Simogo Games are two studios we look to for that element of “juice” I talked about. With games like Mega Jump, Mega Run, Bumpy Road, and Beat Sneak Bandit, I think you see some of the absolute best flare on iOS. Playing those games doesn’t just make you smile: it makes you happy. We wanted to imbue OfficeAttacks! with a sense that every character you meet is someone you’ve met in the office environment before, so all our enemies have back stories and roles within Steve’s (our main character’s) little world. Towers are filled with variety, and whimsy. We added a ton more custom animation we’ll probably never reuse than we really needed to – bad advice perhaps to a developer, but something we felt set the game apart hugely.
How will the game be structured, will there be both a campaign mode as well as an endless survival-style mode?
Eli: OfficeAttacks! will flow in a single player campaign mode (with a cooperative trading system) for its initial release. We’re going to have somewhere near 50 levels, with our game’s main content and bonus levels littered throughout as rewards for certain easter eggs and achievements, and instead of just being a path laid down on the ground, we wanted each to feel like it had a theme, a purpose to the characters you see, and a sense of Steve’s progression throughout this hellish 9-5 grind. A real journey.
With that said, we have already conceptualized an endless survival mode and a multiplayer mode that we are looking to implement in the game’s first major update a month-two after it releases.
One key aspect of OfficeAttacks! that makes it unique compared to other Tower Defense games is the “app power-ups” which are mini games (that parody popular iOS titles) which must be played to earn your power up. Very Cool! It sounds like you guys have put a lot of thought and consideration of how you are going to be approaching these, being sure not to step on any toes, and asking developers for permission before parodying their games. You’ve made it clear that you are not out to steal revenue, or intellectual properties from other developers.
