LedgeWizard Games

Sorry about the recent lack of information. Life has been hectic recently for me, so work on games has been a little more infrequent than I’d like.

The good news is that things are taking shape, with at least half of the new towers now in place. Plenty of game balancing is yet to come, but to give a few quick examples, the Fire, Ice, Quake, Seeker and Sonic-Link towers are now playable in the new levelset. Hopefully, I’ll have some rough screenshots to show soon, once I’ve got things a little less rough looking.

In other news, the new dashboard/interface has arrived on the 360. I’m not sure when, because I wasn’t paying attention, but according to the game development forums, the indie games are hidden away a little too well, so there’s been an initial drop in sales for many people, including some of the most popular games judging from the numbers that have been reported. On the bright side, they’re made it so that a larger number of games are now visible. The jury is currently out on whether this change is going to work out well for the service.

Towers itself is doing quite well in the strategy category (and has been for some time now), with a fairly strong rating and a not-too-bad number of downloads. It could obviously be doing a little bit better as, according to the stats that I can gather, we’re just a tiny way outside of the top rated list in a number of countries. So if you love Towers, feel free to show your appreciation with a nice shiny rating. If you don’t love Towers (ouch!) then feel free to rate up another game you quite like instead.

Incase you were wondering, that was the favour bit of the presentation. So you can stop worrying! I wasn’t going to ask if I could borrow your car, or if you could feed my fish for a few days or anything like that.

A new walkthrough is now available. The split-path madness of the Marshwood now has a handy guide. It’ll even work for the toughest difficulty.

You’ll find it here.

Edit: I accidentally posted the walkthrough here, instead of it’s own page as intended. So apologies to anyone other than myself who I’ve managed to confuse.

I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has tried or bought Towers. Despite the fact that we’re quite well hidden amongst hundreds of other games, the conversion rate for Towers sales vs. trials has been really impressive.

In between checking on the sales figures, I’ve been working on a couple of other projects. One of which, I’m going to reveal now. Wait for it…..

::drumroll::

Yes, you’ve guessed it, we’re making a sequel! We’ve got more than 20 towers, all new levels, a bigger story and a fair bit more besides. We’re not sure if you can handle that much tower defence, but we’re willing to find out!

Due to popular demand. In our walkthrough section, you can now find a guide to everyone’s favourite (hehe), Northcut River!

We’re happy to help.

Hurray! We’ve got another review! This time it’s from Kelly at XBLIG.

For those that like the tower defence type of gameplay, I highly recommend this one to you all. At only 80 ms points for the game, this one’s a real steal. 4 thumbs up from me.

As John has pointed out to me, that requires at least two people to put 4 thumbs up. Either that or that’s double thumbs up, twice. Either way, if you’ve not picked up Towers yet, why not? Go get it here.

GAMINGtruth has rated Towers 4 stars. Personally, we’d have given it 5, but we here at the LedgeWizard Fortress are clearly biased.

For tower defense fans, the Xbox 360 has been a pretty slim provider. Sure they have South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! and Defense Grid (Defense Grid reviews) to whet their appetites, but the list isn’t exactly inspiring. Luckily, up-and-coming English developer, LedgeWizard has heard your cries. Their title, aptly named Towers, is a simple tower defense game but don’t be fooled; it’s more impressive than what the name reveals.

Go take a look here.

Thank you to everybody who has sent in suggestions so far. We’re picking through our favourites and will get back to you soon with what we think is going to go into the next update.

One thing that will definately happen is more modifications to the difficulty. I can’t give exact details yet, but what we will be doing is looking into certain levels that are generally regarded as being a little (or a lot) tougher than those around them. There’s also been a general concensus that the easier difficulty levels should provide a chunk more starting mana.

Previously, Everwinter Trail was quite a stumbling block for some. Adjustments were made and I’ve not heard too much on it since. Do you think it’s better?

Other levels that have been mentioned as being a bit tough include Spellsong Forest, Northcut River, Heath’s Field and The Narrows. Do you agree, and also, do you have favourite levels?

Whilst making Towers, I tried to take in as many opinions as possible. Now that the game has been released, the opinions on the game are still important. Probably even moreso.

Do you know what your favourite or least favourite parts of Towers are? Do you have a tower that you can’t do without, or are there towers you never use, or that seem less useful?

If you could add a tower, what would you create? Perhaps something crazy, or something you’ve never seen before that you think would be awesome.

Do you think Towers should have more difficulty levels? Less endings? Better graphics? More towers? Less of those little yellow monsters? Free beer? High scores?

If you have a suggestion, you can contact me here: adam AT ledgewizardgames DOT com (but with the @ and . put in).

The best suggestion(s) could well end up being added to an update or perhaps even the sequel. If this happens, you’ll also be credited and can choose to receive either a free copy of Towers to give to a friend, or a copy of a future release.

You’ll also have my thanks!

The update for Towers has now passed approval and is available for download. It includes the following changes:

• Two new difficulty settings: Easier difficulty can be accessed at the start of any level. So if you’re finding one particular level to be too tricky, you can now try it on an easier setting to unlock the next level.
• Smoothed difficulty curve: Monsters in some levels have been re-arranged and mana levels adjusted accordingly.
• Better help: You can now see a lot more information in the options menu, which previously was only available through the main menu.

The update is completely free and should be available next time you start your copy of Towers. Now go and save those crystals people!

Robert Boyd of Zeboyd games, creator of Breath of Death VII, has recommended Towers on his website.

Towers is an excellent tower defense game that gets everything right. Good interface, easy controls, pleasing visual and audio, and well balanced gameplay all result in an excellent example of the genre.

Coming from the creator of such an excellent and well received game, that means a hell of a lot. Cheers!