About Toni Sala

Indie game designer and developer

Why Heroes Charge’s Combat System is so engaging

The RPG genre seems to be right now in a very sweet moment on the mobile platform. One of the most cloned RPG games this past year 2015 was Heroes Charge. With its new approach to the genre and to the freemium itself, it created a small revolution among RPG games (and also some controversy).

It is an excellent game in a number of different areas, such as monetization, retention or progression balance. However, I would like to focus on a less visible aspect of the game but the one that serves as foundation for all the rest: the Combat System.

Heroes Charge is designed around a very deep combat system that is taught to players bit by bit along the whole progression of the game. After months playing the game, players can still learn details of the combat system that can make a difference in a battle.

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Muster my Monsters receives award in the AppCircus contest

Last thursday was an incredible day. Muster my Monsters was one of the 10 finalist on the AppCircusBcn contest. So, I was invited to the event to pitch the game during 3 minutes. Not much time!

“I love monsters and fun things, so Muster my Monsters must receive the award” – Jan Wedekind (King.com)

AppCircusBcn_02

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Muster my Monsters now available on the App Store!

Finally! Muster my Monsters is now available on the App Store for FREE as an Universal app!

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New Sokoban

Have a blast fighting in the arena of this hilarious 4-player party game. To deal with this bunch of monsters, the key is to have rapid reflexes, good intuition and master the art of bluffing. And mocking at your rivals! Muster my Monsters basic rules are similar to Rock-Paper-Scissors, but in Muster my Monsters we have ruder actions: Attack beats Mock, Mock beats Dodge and Dodge beats Attack. And this is called “balance”.

Features

  • A modern twist on the classic rock-paper-scissors game featuring funny monsters, crazy attacks and lots of different ways of mocking at your rivals!
  • Solo to up to 4 players (up to 4 players on iPad and up to 2 players on iPhone & iPod Touch)
  • Play versus the AI to improve your skills
  • Two different game modes (Normal and WIFI) that require completely different play styles and skills
  • Win battles to unlock new monsters. Every monster has its own personality!
  • Power-ups
  • High quality visuals with detailed characters and smooth animations
  • Simple controls
  • A good time with friends and family

Enjoy it! “:^]

Muster my Monsters Gameplay video

It has been a lot of time since my last post. I have been extremely busy polishing Muster my Monsters. But finally, the game is finished! 😀 Exact release date isn’t determined yet , though.

Here you have a gameplay video and in the game page you have more information.

I would love to get some feedback. Please, leave your comments about the game in the comments section of this post.

Moreover, I am running a beta test on TestFlight. If you are interested on becoming a tester of Muster my Monsters contact me.

Thank you very much!  “:^]

Porting New Sokoban to Unity3D

After playing around a bit with Unity I’m starting to feel comfortable with it. That’s why I decided to try to port New Sokoban to Unity3D!

Ok, not the entire game, just a little demo. I wanted to work on a little serious 2D project that serve me as a learning experience of what I should expect from developing 2D games with Unity. And I think that a port of New Sokoban is perfect for this!

Following you have the demo.

New Sokoban in Unity

LAUNCH DEMO

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I’m loving Unity

Ok, just to let you know: I’m loving Unity LOL. I think it’s just the natural evolution of any game creation tool. I guess that all the the big AAA companies have developed their own tools similar to Unity. But for little studios like mine/me Unity is kind of a dream. I will encounter issues for sure, but for now, here you have my second little demo :p

Unity Demo Basketball

LAUNCH DEMO

First contact with Unity3D

These days I have been playing around with Unity3D. In case you don’t know Unity3D yet (really?), it is probably the most popular non-free cross-platform game development tool. It covers almost the whole development workflow: prototype, design, programming and deploy. You could even create some simple 3D art for a simple game.

Unity has been in my TO-DO list for a long time and finally I grabbed some time to get into it and create something with it. And it is amazing! 😀 It is a bit intimidating at first place, but the more you use it the more excited you get 🙂

I definitely will create and publish some professional game with Unity, but for now, here you have my first demo project. Thanks to Ray Wenderlich for the great tutorial! “:^]

Unity Demo

LAUNCH DEMO

Muster my Monsters: Procedural Animations Model

One of the most important aspects of Muster my Monsters is the animation system. Muster my Monsters is a semi-interactive game in the sense that you do not control directly the characters in the game but chose the actions they will execute. In some sense, it is like choosing the cinematic sequences that will be played in a while.

Muster my Monsters is a social/party game featuring terribly horrible and ridiculously weird fighting-monsters.

So, the quality of those cinematic sequences is critical. They need to be very visually appealing and, most important, they need to communicate the state of the game precisely to the player.

Muster my Monsters’ basic rules are similar to the rock-paper-scissors game, but in MmM we have ruder actions: Attack wins Mock, Mock wins Dodge and Dodge wins Attack. And this is called “balance”.

Chuck, Muster my Monsters' character

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