By Alec Meer on April 2nd, 2012 at 3:00 pm.
Orcs Must Die, Shoot Many Robots, Kill All Zombies… A trend emerges, and I’m not entirely sure I’m down with so many prosaic game titles. Especially when they’re all so violent. Can’t we have Hug Many Cats, Cake Must Be Eaten, Visit All Museums?
Until then, we shall make do with Orcs Must Die! 2, which will slaughter its way towards our PCs’ hard drives this Summer. It brings a co-op mode to the rather splendid greenskin-tormenting, introducing a lady partner for the returning, possibly Evil Dead-inspired War Mage hero. She’s apparently ‘more nuanced’, using stuff like mind control rather than the bloke’s straight-up genocidal tactics. Mind controlling orc hordes sounds like a good time to me. Reveal trailer for the game that is sadly not subtitled ‘Must Die Harder’ is below.
DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH and so forth.
Promised is an array of new traps on top of all the original ones, plus a redesigned upgrade system that’s a bit more forgiving to players who aren’t entirely shit-hot at trap-setting and monster-stabing.
Further information may be obtained here, and you won’t need to kill anyone to access it.
02/04/2012 at 15:05 sneetch says:
Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssss! Love this game single player and co-op will be fantastic!
Further information may be obtained here, and you won’t need to kill anyone to access it.
But we can kill if we want to, right? I mean it is an option, isn’t it? Otherwise… I think I owe some apologies.
02/04/2012 at 15:21 f1x says:
indeed I was thinking “omg aint it too early for a second part?” but then I saw the co-op part and I was like “Awesome!”, that was the only thing missing in the first one, co-op
02/04/2012 at 15:06 Jams O'Donnell says:
Mrs Jams won’t let me play the original, because she says it goes against my fondness for orcs. Telling her “but it’s a really, really fun game” doesn’t help either. I’m never going to see past the fourth level. :(
02/04/2012 at 17:01 SixOkay says:
You could just try playing really poorly… let a bunch of orcs through and kill just enough to progress to the next level. Maybe?
02/04/2012 at 19:20 Stephen Roberts says:
Orc’s Must Die is probably my Game of the Year for 2011 / whenever it is now.
I too also have a fondness for Orcs (or, more accurately, Orks). It pains me slightly to say that I’m looking forward to yet more excellent Orc murdering fun.
There should be a counterpoint game called Humans Must Die, where you play as an Orc.
02/04/2012 at 20:06 Ricotta says:
I agree, I had more fun playing this game than all the others combined…. And I played a lot of games
02/04/2012 at 20:14 Heliocentric says:
The real counterpart would be Orcs Must Receive Adequate Healthcare.
02/04/2012 at 15:07 ZIGS says:
Orcs Must Die! 2 will be available exclusively as a digital download on personal computers this summer.
What is this, a PC-exclusive sequel to an originally multiplatform title? Surely they must be mad, haven’t they heard the PC died? Someone please inform these poor chaps before they commit financial suicide
02/04/2012 at 15:08 Dowson says:
All that means is its only out on PC this summer, it could be out on consoles later.
02/04/2012 at 17:01 SixOkay says:
We currently have no plans to bring it to consoles.
02/04/2012 at 15:45 Malibu Stacey says:
One suspects the original did considerably better on PC release than Xbox 360 as per most Indie games & they’re not wanting to get into the habit of making the same mistake twice.
03/04/2012 at 04:09 ScorpionWasp says:
Is Orcs Must Die considered an indie game? But it has polished 3D graphics, full voice acting and a TON of items/enemies/levels! The term “indie” is losing all descriptive value these days…
03/04/2012 at 13:07 bfandreas says:
Well, they haven’t signed up with a big publisher but publish themselves. Same as Bastion. And others. Torchlight. Trine. There might be some WB logo in one of them.
That’s all there is to the “indie” tag. No UBI, EA, Acti, Whatever does get between you and the developing studio. Which means nobody else(but the distributor, which could be Steam, Good O’Games or their own website) gets between your money and their revenue.
Production value on some of the indie games is simply breathtaking.
*cough*
Bastion
Also: Bastion
02/04/2012 at 17:04 stupid_mcgee says:
Well, if you parse the sentence, technically, the “exclusively” is actually regarding OMD2′s status as being digital download only. If it was exclusive to PC, it should have read, “Orcs Must Die! 2 will be available as a digital download exclusively on personal computers this summer.”
That is, of course, “technically.” It very well may be PC exclusive. If it is PC exclusive, they should have worded it better. If it is, as how I read it, then all it means is that OMD2 is a download-only product and that there will not be any store-stocked boxed editions.
-edit- NVM, apparently it is PC exclusive. Poor wording it is.
02/04/2012 at 15:08 RaytraceRat says:
sounds great to me.
02/04/2012 at 15:08 Thecreeperskg says:
Orcs Must Die Harder 2
Orcs Must Die 3: With a vengeance
See where this is going.. :D
02/04/2012 at 15:10 Belua says:
Orcs Must Live Free Or Die Hard 4.0: Hackers.Orc
02/04/2012 at 15:10 Kaira- says:
Orcs Must Die! And Electric Boogaloo.
02/04/2012 at 16:05 Rinox says:
Nothing beats the greatest title for a game ever: Tales of Game’s Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa
02/04/2012 at 16:19 westyfield says:
What about Dudebro: My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It’s Straight-Up Dawg Time?
02/04/2012 at 16:56 Rinox says:
Sir, if that is a real game, I must play it without further dalliance!
02/04/2012 at 16:18 westyfield says:
I would have suggested Golems Must Die Too.
02/04/2012 at 17:06 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Orcs Must Die 2: Orcs Must Still Die
Orcs Must Die 2: More Orcs Must Die
Orcs Must Die 2: Not Enough Orcs Have Died
Orcs Must Die 2: Keep Killing, We’ll Tell You When To Stop
Orcs Must Die 2: You Missed Some Last Time
Orcs Must Die 2: Kill Them Harder
Orcs Must Die 2: We Found More Orcs
Orcs Must Die 2: Kobolds Must Also Die
Orcs Must Die 2: NOT! ENOUGH! DEATH!
Orcs Must Die 2: I Hate Those Green Guys
Orcs Must Die 2: Get Your Hands Off Me You Damned Stinking Orc!
Orcs Must Die 2: You Have The Right To Remain Green (And Dead)
02/04/2012 at 15:09 Belua says:
Best news of the day. Or maybe even the year. OMD is awesome, and the one and only thing I complained about was that it would be even more awesome with coop.
02/04/2012 at 15:16 Keymonk says:
I got bored pretty quickly without co-op. :c
02/04/2012 at 15:09 JFS says:
Cake Must Be Eaten. Someone make this game, quick!
02/04/2012 at 17:41 lonerock says:
I was thinking that “Visit All Museums” should be Jim Rossignol’s next game.
02/04/2012 at 15:10 Keymonk says:
YES!
02/04/2012 at 15:26 Wang Tang says:
Exactly my thought!
02/04/2012 at 15:10 RedViv says:
They need to pronounce the number German. ORCS MUST DIE!!! ZWEI!!! sounds so much more metal.
02/04/2012 at 15:19 sneetch says:
They’re keeping it for OMD 3: Orcs Must Ein! Zwei! Die! :)
02/04/2012 at 15:31 RedViv says:
This round goes to you, Sir.
02/04/2012 at 15:11 JackShandy says:
I hope the extra player will mean the traps can get properly rube goldberg this time around. I was always disappointed that the best trap configurations always just squashed the orcs in a tiny corridor. Contraptions that flung orcs from one trap to the next were ineffective, and you never got enough money to coat the entire level with traps.
I want to fling an orc back and forth through an entire levels worth of sawblades, springs and mashing pits, then have him reach the final destination only to catapult him right back to the start. And I want to be doing that to 50 orcs at once.
02/04/2012 at 15:24 Devenger says:
I wondered whether a feature (either always there, or unlocked through the Steel Weaver), where you got more coins based on how many different types of trap the enemy had been hit by before they died, would have allowed more wacky trap-based strategies to be viable. Anything to make it less the case that (on Nightmare difficulty) kills while enemies stand on Coinforges are the only way to go would be good, really.
02/04/2012 at 15:56 Post-Internet Syndrome says:
There was such a system in the original, where you would get “combos” from hitting the same enemy with several different traps. Don’t remember if the reward was money or just points though.
02/04/2012 at 16:10 Groove says:
Even then the combos usually involved a low-damage floor trap coupled with a low damage wall trap and crossbow fire.
Any combo other than that weak combo or a repeated push/spring trap would usually kill the orc before you had time to build a multiplier.
For reference, my late-game setup was a perpetually swinging mace with tar/burning coals under it and push traps on the walls. This didn’t build a combo so much though, since the mace killed almost everything in one hit.
02/04/2012 at 16:31 InternetBatman says:
The best combos were normally tar traps or spike traps, fire elves, a grinder, and then something like a mace that would kill them if they got through. The fire elves were absolutely necessary to build up high combos, since they would apply a fairly long-lasting dot.
And combos only affected points not money. Once you beat the game and you had the upgraded money pit trap, there was more money than you knew what to do with. I had so much money in the second or third to last level that I coated both pathways with arrow traps all the way up to rift. And still only got four skulls.
02/04/2012 at 17:29 stupid_mcgee says:
Yeah, the mace works great against everything except runners. I like to use a combination of the ceiling mace and the ceiling crushers. The ceiling crushers are great for slowing down Ogres mobs, especially on Nightmare, and when placed above tar pits the reset time becomes less of an issue. The push traps are great because of how cheap they are, but they have to reset which makes them kill less efficient than the Wall Grinder trap.
A great combo trap is to do Steam Vent, Spring Trap, Tar Pit, Lava, and then wall traps/ceiling traps. It’s also good to have a few archers stand back to take anyone down after they clear the trap field. Using this plus lighting clouds, it’s fairly easy to get consistent x5 and x6 combo attacks. Also, having a wall push trap shove them into, say, a grinding wall trap, will also generate bonuses. Even if the Orc was killed from the push trap, you will get bonuses when the grinder chews them up, too.
02/04/2012 at 17:58 Post-Internet Syndrome says:
Might take this opportunity to ask: What is the steam trap for? I have never found a meaningful use for it.
02/04/2012 at 18:09 stupid_mcgee says:
@ Post-Internet Syndrome: In my experience, and I’m not an expert although I have gotten some pretty high scores, steam traps are mostly just for combos and slowing Orcs down. What they actually do is; they force steam up, causing whatever is on top of there to levitate for a second. The nice thing is that they’re cheap. So, it’s very easy to build a combo trap that doesn’t cost much. They also do a good job of snagging runners, which spike traps and tar+ceiling traps won’t catch. (although I think lava traps are far the best for runners) While levitating, the Orcs are sitting ducks for your crossbow, magic, sword, or even archer guardians.
As I said, they’re mostly used for making combo traps, but they can be useful in their own right. They’re not great on their own, but they are cheap and they will slow the mobs down a bit.
02/04/2012 at 16:25 Devenger says:
I never found that combo system to meaningfully work. Perhaps it just needed to be better explained, though. I do remember it made “huge quantities of elven archers’ an even more devastating strategy than it already was, if you got the Steel Weaver upgrade that let them build combos purely with each other’s hits – but that wasn’t that interesting, despite looking very dramatic.
02/04/2012 at 18:16 stupid_mcgee says:
IME, you really need to be, either really good at placing your guardian archer mob, or you need to only use 4 or so archers. The way I’ve done it, I never have more than 4 archers at my choke point. There’s usually no reason, unless you have to deal with fliers. Damned fliers! Especially those ice ones! Grrrr!
But, yeah, if going for combos, the more passive traps you can put in there, the better. Using your lightning storm as well as your Mouse2 radial ice blast will also help rack up some serious points.
02/04/2012 at 15:57 Reapy says:
For 5 bucks when I grabbed it, I can’t complain, this was a pretty awesome game…but I will ;)
I agree with you my main gripe was what you said, I wanted to do wacky trap designs, but with budgeting where you place them and the nature of them really went against that. It just never made sense to fling them into a pit or anything, really just slow and smash them. Wanted to see a bit more wackiness in the game.
02/04/2012 at 17:03 SixOkay says:
We actually rewrote a few systems specifically to make things more rube-goldbergian. You can do those type of fling-fling-fling-push-fling-push-kill traps much more easily this time around. We’ll show video some time soon.
02/04/2012 at 17:47 stupid_mcgee says:
Having gotten OMD just a month or so ago, I immediately was hooked and have been playing at least a little bit every day, despite having beaten all the maps (and DLC maps) on WM and Nightmare with 5 skulls. Actually, I was hooked right after playing the demo.
The humor and sheer addictive nature is awesome. I’m a big fan of the “easy to learn, difficult to master” form of game design, and this fits that bill perfectly. It took me a bit, but now I’m posting scores within the top 500 regularly. I’m not a master, obviously, but I have broken the top 100 for a few maps and it feels really good to have mastered the game enough to do that!
OMD really is a fantastic game and I’m glad that’s been successful. Hopefully OMD2 will be an even bigger hit! I’m looking forward to the expanded Rube Goldberg possibilities! I know I’ll be buying a copy for myself and for at least one or two friends. It’s great to hear from the developers in this kind of manner, so thank you for taking the time to talk with the community and answer questions. Oh, and last, but not least; thank you guys for making such an incredibly awesome game!
02/04/2012 at 20:06 bfandreas says:
While you are at it, a sandbox mode with infinite waves would be most welcome. I know I’m not alone in this and I just bought Dungeon Keeper 2 from GOG for the sandbox mode this game offered. Just some kind of OCD-friendly endless hour slaughterfest for those who ramped up 800 waves+ in Plants vs Zombies.
Nothing fancy. Just endless waves of enemies and preferably in a way where we can choose what’s coming next.
Orcs must die: OCD
Also I don’t get my X-Box controller to work with OMD. This is a perfect game for that kind of control. Also nVidia 3D Vision support would be welcome. There’s an opportunity to take a slice out of Trine’s cake!
I’m aware a level editor is too much to ask…
Also Tegra 3? Isn’t it tempting?
Omit any of these things and you still got a sale. Which does make this kind of a weak threat. But I will write an email to TotalBiscuit. And I might even click the send button!
03/04/2012 at 04:00 JackShandy says:
Awesome, thanks for the reply.
03/04/2012 at 00:06 Artiforg says:
You’ll be wanting to use this then:
Orcs Must Die! Onslaught Generator
You can’t have totally custom maps but it will allow you to set the number of waves, number of orcs per wave and most importantly how much cash you get per kill so that you can trap every single square on the map. Select a map and click “Create with Wizard” then fill in the details on the subsequent page, download the generated map data and then create a folder in “orcs must die/data” called “mod” and another one in that called “onslaughts” then extract the zip file into the “onslaughts” directory and then start up the game. Start the map you replaced and enjoy the absolute carnage.
Warning: Can spoil the game if you haven’t completed each level already.
03/04/2012 at 19:39 stupid_mcgee says:
You are a gentleman and a scholar, fine sir. Thank you!
02/04/2012 at 15:12 LuNatic says:
This game needs a survive for as long as you can arena mode.
02/04/2012 at 15:24 JKjoker says:
i greatly enjoyed the first game, i dont give a crap about the coop but i’d welcome more levels and traps
im hoping they make the sequel longer (or at least add some level of randomization, maybe a mode where mobs are random), make the “no design phases” feature in the harder difficulties optional (that was the one thing i HATED about the first game) and that they give a reason to use the less efficient traps (the trap selection limit pretty much made them useless)
02/04/2012 at 15:27 MichaelPalin says:
Haven’t played this but, how is that nobody is saying things like “it’s too early”, “should be an expansion”, “this is a cash cow”, etc.?
02/04/2012 at 15:37 Jojhy says:
Easy, I found OMD to be incredibly fun from the start to the end -full skulls on nightmare- while being a very cheap game. I don’t remember the last time I found a game to be ‘pure fun’ and all I wish from the first one -more levels and coop- seem to be included on this one, damn at last I made a RPS account because I loved it so much.
02/04/2012 at 15:38 MiniMatt says:
I’d hazard a guess that cheapness is a lot to it. I can’t remember the cost at launch but it went very cheap very quick and was on the Steam christmas sale for the princely sum of a small ball of pocket lint and tummy button fluff. In that context people don’t begrudge new game over expansion when the new game will likely cost the same as expansions for more mainstream games.
02/04/2012 at 15:48 sneetch says:
Indeed, it was $15 when it came out and provided excellent value for money, IMO, at least.
I don’t see how anyone could reasonably expect an expansion that adds so much to retail for less than that. If it was a $50 game then I’d say lots of people would have negative things to say about it.
02/04/2012 at 16:33 InternetBatman says:
It was very low price soon after its release and offered just the right amount of dumb content. They’ll need to add way more to avoid the calls of unnecessary sequel. I can’t get mad at a game I bought for $3 because they’re making a sequel.
02/04/2012 at 17:56 stupid_mcgee says:
I paid, like, $3.75 or something for OMD on sale and I have around 60+ hours played in it. That’s one hell of a deal. I’ve gotten way more value out of OMD than I did with Bioshock 2, which I only have 19 hours on and have beaten with no desire to ever play it again. OMD, on the other hand, I still like to pick up and do a quick run through some of my more favorite maps even though I’ve technically “finished” the game.
02/04/2012 at 18:08 Sinomatic says:
I imagine because “it’s too early” only applies when people aren’t already chomping at the bit for more. OMD was one of my favourite 3 games last year and I know I’ve been saying I wanted a part 2 with co-op for months now.
02/04/2012 at 20:17 bfandreas says:
I do agree. Bastion, OMD and Master of Magic were the games of 2011.
OMD was quite a bit underrated I think. Got mine off of Steam during the holiday sales.
HERE! TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY!
*sob*
02/04/2012 at 15:30 MiniMatt says:
I shall scour future Alec Writes Words columns in search of further updates to this excellent news.
02/04/2012 at 15:38 Ricc says:
Wasn’t she the villain from the first game?
(SPOILER ALERT)
I thought the Sorceress dies at the end. :3
(END SPOILER ALERT)
02/04/2012 at 16:34 InternetBatman says:
Yes, and she doesn’t die. She’s surrounded by a bunch of Orcs without magic.
02/04/2012 at 16:59 sneetch says:
Oh, I’m sure her winning personality and charming ways were more than enough to get her out of that minor setback. ;)
02/04/2012 at 15:43 Bhazor says:
I’m down with this.
Just so long as the DLC is reasonable.
02/04/2012 at 15:43 Malibu Stacey says:
And boom goes the dynamite.
Do want. Co-op multiplayer & Survival modes are pretty much all I thought the first one lacks.
02/04/2012 at 15:47 Freud says:
The original triggered the completist in me and I poured 30 hours into it. Great concept and while some of the nightmare maps required specific ‘solutions’ (windbelt mostly) it still felt fresh all the way through.
02/04/2012 at 16:04 UnravThreads says:
If you can single player it with her, I’m sold.
02/04/2012 at 16:55 SixOkay says:
You can play single player as either character, or mix and match them up in Co-Op
02/04/2012 at 18:10 Sinomatic says:
So could both players play the same character (i.e. 2 warmages) in co-op. should they choose to?
02/04/2012 at 16:06 psychoconductor says:
WANT.
02/04/2012 at 16:39 Kdansky says:
>a redesigned upgrade system that’s a bit more forgiving to players.
As if the game wasn’t already ridiculously easy to begin with. More Dark Souls, less Amalur, please.
02/04/2012 at 20:28 bfandreas says:
Well, you see, a mate and I replayed this weekend a lot of the Amiga games we were so fond of. The thing we constantly asked ourselves was: how could we subject ourselves to this kind of difficulty?
R-Type, Turrican and Xenon 2(my personal White Whale) were hideously hard. And also quite short. I contrasted this with Tyrian which was semi-challenging in comparison but even if you cheated your way through it it took at least 3 hrs from beginning to end. And much more fun.
My point being, please confine difficulty to the according settings. I prefer to play my games on whimp mode when I get home after a hard day treading the eternal treadmill. I found out the hard way that I’m not a teenager anymore and I don’t want to learn how to make less mistakes in a game than a Korean SC2 champ.
Also I found it not easy to even get 4 stars on the later OMD levels. I like to take my time when placing traps.
03/04/2012 at 18:58 Dances to Podcasts says:
You know, he could just be talking about the interface. Took me quite a while to find out you could actually upgrade traps. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people who completely missed it.
Also, not every game has to be stupendously hard. Not everyone likes to spend their time dying.
02/04/2012 at 16:41 Bobka says:
Awesome! I absolutely adored the first game.
It would be really cool if the woman was available as an alternate character in the singleplayer campaign too. And even cooler if they make her just as snarky as the dude, instead of just making her mystical and serious – I find there’s a sad tendency to make female characters less funny than their male counterparts.
No matter what they do, though, this is going to be great.
02/04/2012 at 16:57 SixOkay says:
She is a playable character for the single player campaign. And given that we’ve already been introduced to her in the original game, she’s already got an established character that plays well against the War Mage.
02/04/2012 at 16:55 Shinan says:
Will this version have rebindable keys?
That’s really the only reason I haven’t go the original. Of course I only tried the demo (and it didn’t have key rebinds), maybe they patched it into the full game?
02/04/2012 at 16:58 SixOkay says:
Did you use the CFG setup we released for keybinding, or was that just more work than you wanted to invest in binding?
02/04/2012 at 18:00 stupid_mcgee says:
My biggest problem with the original’s key setup was the mousewheel. Rolling backwards cycled forward and rolling forward cycled backwards. I’m sure some are used to that, but I found it incredibly infuriating and is something that I’m still not really used to.
The ability to switch between regular and inverted mousewheel cycling would be aces!
02/04/2012 at 17:00 SixOkay says:
Oh, and to answer your question, we will have keybinding actually in-game (a menu screen) for OMD2.
02/04/2012 at 16:56 InternetBatman says:
Ugh. Spamfilter. Here are my ideas to make a good game better.
Skulls decoupled from points. An effective trap system should be enough to get full skulls. Save the point system for leaderboards. It looked like they might have showed some of that in the long run.
A better point system. Counting active effects made push and spring traps practically useless in the long run. Some fun, really elaborate traps (like splatter walls) also got discounted in that mode.
A better tutorial. I could never get five skulls in a few levels until I looked online and saw how the point system worked.
Spiked pit traps. Imagine how cool it would be if there were pit traps that filled up with the bodies of dead orcs until they ran over them.
Better spells. Spell casting levels were too often exercises in freeze and stab or tar and fireball. I would like to see necromancy (which might have been shown), mage armor, poison clouds, etc. Also, it might be nice if they had a separate mode designed with no traps at all and only casting. Lightning was effectively useless if you were just trying to have fun and not playing the score game.
Similarly, they could do a lot with melee. Imagine a monk type character or a slow knight in armor. Speed is often important in the game so it would be an interesting trade off.
Improved fliers. Fliers were an exercise in annoyance. They just increased the difficulty of the game without increasing the fun. Ways to bottleneck them, flier specific traps and spells, units that just attacked fliers at a bonus, all would make them more interesting.
Improved Nightmare mode. Too often nightmare was just the same mode with more enemies with more health. This meant that you were surviving by the skin of your teeth for the first few levels, and then were just watching orcs die in the gauntlet. Some maps do that really well. Others are just critically unbalanced for that mode.
A better way to break up gauntlets than explosive kobolds. Explosive kobolds make it more frantic for a while, but then get annoying while you’re playing the scores and skull game.
Cheaper traps but piles of bodies. I think it would be a neat idea for every trap to have a point where the sheer mass of orcs goes straight over it.
02/04/2012 at 17:14 sneetch says:
Skulls decoupled from points. An effective trap system should be enough to get full skulls. Save the point system for leaderboards. It looked like they might have showed some of that in the long run.
…
A better tutorial. I could never get five skulls in a few levels until I looked online and saw how the point system worked.
Erm… this is already the case. You get 4 skulls based on the number of rift points you have remaining at the end and the last one for completing it below par time. So if you kill every orc before the par time you get 5 skulls.
The points you score in the stage are just for the leaderboards. Unless I misunderstand you?
02/04/2012 at 17:40 InternetBatman says:
Whoops. I’m an idiot. And I seem to remember that the time limit was based on the average of times already posted, which isn’t a great idea. I do wish they flat out explained this stuff at the start of the game. It wouldn’t be too hard to have the character say something when too much time has passed.
02/04/2012 at 17:37 Metonymy says:
So, that just happened. Yep 5 skulls were just “getting a perfect quickly.”
-Consecutive upgrades. If I really want a particular trap to be good, I should be able to keep upgrading it. And I should be able to ‘choose’ what type of upgrade. Ie, 3 consecutive damage upgrades on spike traps, or 3 consecutive snare upgrades, or a mix of upgrades.
-The ability to modify the gameplay focus. A ‘trap’ mode and a ‘shooter’ mode, which should weaken or strengthen the main weapon and spells dramatically, and then increase and decrease the available money. Perhaps these could just be bonus modes, to reduce the development time.
02/04/2012 at 17:44 Kdansky says:
Your consecutive upgrades have a problem: There will be a mathematically superior way to distribute those points, and that makes for a bad game.
02/04/2012 at 17:49 Chris D says:
Isn’t that just a balance issue? Shouldn’t be too hard to fix so long as you adjust the costs/effectiveness accordingly.
02/04/2012 at 18:43 InternetBatman says:
There already is a mathematically superior way to distribute points in the existing game, because there are more and less ideal traps. They compensate for this by making the less ideal traps cost less to upgrade. That’s why arrow walls cost half as much as the swing mace to upgrade, and the coinforge upgrade costs even more.
As long as you can get both upgrades eventually, I see no problem with short term disadvantages.
02/04/2012 at 21:14 Metonymy says:
I definitely think they could improve here, for casual appeal. A lot of the traps I just didn’t learn how to use well, so I kept using arrows, tar, archers. I learned a few more on consecutive playthroughs, like wall-grinders, barricades and brimstone, but there’s still a few that I just can’t get good use out of.
I just realized these guys are in Plano Texas. Hey dudes, I live down by Preston and Campbell, I’ll be happy to “beta test.” No criminal record!
02/04/2012 at 17:01 bohzak says:
a level designer would be ace
02/04/2012 at 17:09 Roshin says:
All I want is (1) a map editor and (2) more amusing ragdolls.
02/04/2012 at 17:22 Enikuo says:
How does trap placement work in co-op? Do you get your own resource pool to selfishly set up traps as you see fit? Do you share resources so that you must “cooperate” (argue) over best placement? Is the secondary player locked out of setting up traps? Do you take turnsies?
02/04/2012 at 17:24 Strutter says:
Alright hope they let me rebind my keys this time like most other games do.
02/04/2012 at 18:00 Tei says:
I have played Dungeons Defenders 120 hours (or so say Steam, I think is way more).
I have played Orcs Must Die 6 hours.
Both are good fun games, but multiplayer and looting adds soo much more to a game in the longevity department.
02/04/2012 at 18:52 Carra says:
“New enemies” is what I expect to see in an addon.
OMD was one of my favorite games of last year. I even finished it twice, once on normal and once on hard mode, something I almost never do with other games.
I’ll be happy to play more of it.
02/04/2012 at 18:59 pipman3000 says:
But can you talk to the orcs?
02/04/2012 at 19:39 lunarplasma says:
I loved the first game, so I am looking forward to this one.
I do have to roll my eyes over the skimpy costume, but hey.
02/04/2012 at 20:34 bfandreas says:
Somehow girls in computer games never have problems with frozen kidney. I used to dress my WoW tank in woolen underwear so her skimpy bra and thong combo wouldn’t expose her too much to the elements.
Hey! Ice Crown Cathedral is a cold place, mkay?
02/04/2012 at 19:46 Farsearcher says:
I’d play hug many cats, Cake Must be Eaten and Visit all museums. If only someone would make them. Damnit Caldwell stop looking at me with your punk gaze I am not going to make them. Stop it!
02/04/2012 at 19:55 geerad says:
I don’t know about Hug Many Cats, but there is robotfindskitten: http://robotfindskitten.org/
03/04/2012 at 04:32 ScorpionWasp says:
I’d like to see an option to turn friendly fire on in this one. It would add an extra layer of strategy to things when traps can hit you/your guardians; and you’d also have to be extra careful when attacking things close to guardians.
04/04/2012 at 05:02 Srethron says:
Am I bad for thinking the orcs are shocked at whatever it is that’s under her skirt? (That is to say, the art could be improved, and the game would benefit from it.)