More Details Emerge For One Man Left's Outwitters Game Project, Formerly Game II
May 12, 2011
Last month, One Man Left revealed a game project that was to be "something completely different" than their current hit game Tilt to Live. The project was originally announced with the title of Game II, but the developers seem to have decided on an actual name now: Outwitters. Without further delay, it's time to find out more about the game behind the mouse with a severed robot head on a fork.
Outwitters is described as a "multiplayer, multi-race strategy game" that's easy to pick up and play. Alex and Adam, the One Man Left team, want to create a strategy game that fits the genre but isn't too overwhelming and complex for those who aren't hardcore strategists. In hopes to find a happy medium, One Man Left is getting opinions from both sides of the strategy gamer fence.
The goal of the project is to boil the usual strategy experience down to what’s most fun about it, in our opinion. We’re tweaking some of the conventions, and eliminating tedium where we find it. The phrase “I don’t usually like this type of game, but…” has already come up in testing, which is definitely what we’re aiming for. How do we know if we’re on the right track? We’re recruiting testers that don’t like strategy games AND testers that love them, and we’re listening. And then we’re thinking really hard.The project is constantly being tweaked, however, basic gameplay, more artwork, and some race details have been shared since we originally brought the news. Players will begin on a selected map with their own base and a small army of units of their chosen race with the objective to destroy the opponents base. "Wits" will be the currency-type item of the game, allowing unit creation and more. As of now, each race will consist of six unit types: Soldier, Runner, Heavy, Medic, Sniper, and Special Unit. To provide an example, Adam tossed out the current concept of the Feedback race, a group of evil robots. To help get reactions from testers, including the One Man Left team, the Special Unit created for Feedback is Scrambler. Scrambler is "an incredibly persuasive, cybernetic floating brain" that can convince cornered opponent units to join your alliance. The final tidbit for now is the Feedback home world, or otherwise known as a map, pictured at the beginning of this post. The spaces with team logos are unit spawn locations, where players can create new units during their turn, if they have enough Wits. The number at the top-left of a unit is the health indicator. The flags indicate capture spaces, which have been generalized as something to "help you gain the upper hand." Outwitters is scheduled to be released for iPad, iPhone, and IPod touch later this year with a "lite" version available for users to give the game a test run before taking the plunge on the full version.
