Hello all!
It's already been 4 years since I began to develop <Ratropols>,
and 2 years have passed since the release of the game.
While we are busy on developing our new game, <Ratopia>,
long has been passed since the last update of <Ratropolis>.
But this time, I'd like to talk about our newest update of <Ratropols> and the troubles we had.
<New update banner! Aren’t they look great?>
On this update, we've tried to put variety on the early game playing experiences.
By pressing gender change button on the leader selection page,
you will be able to use our brand new leaders with new abilities, new advisors, and new starting cards.
Let me introduce these new leaders to you, one by one.
- New Merchant -
This new merchant's ability developed the last among all.
We've tried lessening card costs, gaining more taxes, and earning more golds,
but none were really satisfying.
In the end, we remembered that the merchant leader got many great Labor cards,
so decided to make more benefits related to those.
The new starting advisor, Broker, will also grant you to have benefits of high purchasing power,
while also give you the risks of being broke.
- New General -
This new General leader was designed to get benefits from population.
To use the leader with more efficiency, use the ability to increase population,
and make more values with unused citizens with the new advisor, Baron.
Since the leader ability makes you give up the chances to deploy the units,
you will need to consider the possibility of catastrophic consequences when using it.
In addition, to use Baron with more efficiency, using cards with right order is also important.
Baron might feel a bit weak in the early game,
but with the units doubling their max health with the effect of 'Growth',
the advisor will give you a great power.
- New Builder -
New builder leader’s ability of making the walls invincible came up right away,
but the problem was after that.
The leader already had characteristics of using structures to defend the city,
and there has been so many cards related to that.
Still it is a strong ability with great synergies, so I hope to see how the strategies might change.
Carpenter advisor was to keep the identity of the Builder leader’s structure-related function.
But since the ability got changed, the new leader will have difficulty on getting building cards.
- New Scientist -
Ah, the new scientist leader is cute.
In addition to that, this new leader has a powerful ability to duplicate a card in hand.
Making a valuable card for duplication is a key to play this leader,
giving you a great feel of joy when a copies of strengthened card fills up all of your hands.
And the advisor, Factory Owner, will make them even easier to use.
However, since the ability’s target is a random card in hand,
Strategically emptying the hands to prevent from copying unwanted cards is really important.
- New Shaman -
Since the original shaman was a female leader, this new leader was added as a male form.
The early idea was to reincarnate recently died units,
But this was not working at all when mixed up with save and load.
So instead, we strengthened key ability of shaman, the Cursing ability.
The penalty of sacrificing ally units affects on playing crucially,
So quantity over quality is really important on deploying the units.
This will also be really effective when combined with units with summoning abilities.
The new advisor, Sinner, was designed to cover the hole in the defense caused by the leader ability.
Slow down the enemies with the advisor, sacrifice your units, and restore the defense line.
You will achieve victory easily.
- New Navigator -
New navigator’s ability concept was really hard to decide.
Unlike the merchant, it was hard to make even the candidates.
The early idea was to get high award with little chances,
but this gave no strategic choice making process at all.
With many considerations, we’ve made the ability useful to use the card with notoriety.
You might win the gamble and thus can use those cards without paying,
But when you lose, you will lose what you have in your hand.
And the new advisor, Cheater, will give you more chances to use the leader ability.
So that’s the all 6 new abilities and advisors.
In addition to those, 6 more advisors have been added together.
Hope you enjoy the update!
- Update Progress -
It’s already been a year since the last Christmas update.
Thankfully, many people gave us love and attention, and it made us possible to make a better result.
So this time again, we have thought a lot about what to update for the game.
This worries were mainly due to the limitation that we felt when we were updating the game last year.
What we noticed was that as the time goes, it gets harder to update the game.
Many of the in-game contents are tangled together,
so few changes would not affect the game much on the player's perspective,
but some systemic update could affect harshly, and the consequence could not be measured.
In addition to that, since there were changes in the team members,
Expectations of the effect of the updates does is diminishing too.
Still for this update we had many discussions and thoroughly planned.
The main idea was to have minimum risks, and maximum effects,
And that is why, again, we have decided to update the game on this, winter sales season.
<Since it is the longest sales season, we thought there would be more new players>
The contents we have discussed about was;
Adding mode that used military cards comes to siege the city,
Mode to play the game with limited resources,
And new abilities with new advisors.
Among those, we thought the last is the best.
This was mainly because of the practical reasons.
Adding new abilities could make players to have different experiences from the beginning,
And this would take less effort on making new art and sound resources.
The main problem was on the programming section, since new systems in the game takes bunch of time for both making and testing.
So the new contents were also had to be designed with the ideas those already were existed already in the game.
If there’s some time left after those, then we thought we could add more advisors.
Since the update contents was not that broadly affecting on the whole game,
So we put our effort mostly on developing the quality of the new leaders.
We have visited former colleagues and got helps for illustrations, sounds, and visual effects.
<Thankfully, qualified works could be done within an insufficient time>
Translations was also time-taking works.
Since we are supporting 13 languages,
We could not simply let there be user translators to follow up after just leaving a Korean and English texts.
So we have decided to translate it ourselves by using previous translations.
This was not easy, and not perfectly matched,
but better than expected since the new abilities were also based on previous existing ones.
We were worried that the update might be denounced by the users because of the insufficiency,
But thankfully, many loved it and left comments to cheer us up.
I guess this is a joy of developing games.
If, due to the realistic and practical reasons, we did not update the game,
I believe I would have regret the decision.
Thank you for reading this long article again,
Hope you have a great new year of 2023!
< 'Leaders' by Lizty>
< 'Merchant leader' by 오르 (Orr) >
Home page: https://www.CasselGames.com/
Steam Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1108370/Ratropolis/
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CasselGames.Ratropolis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CasselGames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CasselGames
Hello all!
It's already been 4 years since I began to develop <Ratropols>,
and 2 years have passed since the release of the game.
While we are busy on developing our new game, <Ratopia>,
long has been passed since the last update of <Ratropolis>.
But this time, I'd like to talk about our newest update of <Ratropols> and the troubles we had.
<New update banner! Aren’t they look great?>
On this update, we've tried to put variety on the early game playing experiences.
By pressing gender change button on the leader selection page,
you will be able to use our brand new leaders with new abilities, new advisors, and new starting cards.
Let me introduce these new leaders to you, one by one.
- New Merchant -
This new merchant's ability developed the last among all.
We've tried lessening card costs, gaining more taxes, and earning more golds,
but none were really satisfying.
In the end, we remembered that the merchant leader got many great Labor cards,
so decided to make more benefits related to those.
The new starting advisor, Broker, will also grant you to have benefits of high purchasing power,
while also give you the risks of being broke.
- New General -
This new General leader was designed to get benefits from population.
To use the leader with more efficiency, use the ability to increase population,
and make more values with unused citizens with the new advisor, Baron.
Since the leader ability makes you give up the chances to deploy the units,
you will need to consider the possibility of catastrophic consequences when using it.
In addition, to use Baron with more efficiency, using cards with right order is also important.
Baron might feel a bit weak in the early game,
but with the units doubling their max health with the effect of 'Growth',
the advisor will give you a great power.
- New Builder -
New builder leader’s ability of making the walls invincible came up right away,
but the problem was after that.
The leader already had characteristics of using structures to defend the city,
and there has been so many cards related to that.
Still it is a strong ability with great synergies, so I hope to see how the strategies might change.
Carpenter advisor was to keep the identity of the Builder leader’s structure-related function.
But since the ability got changed, the new leader will have difficulty on getting building cards.
- New Scientist -
Ah, the new scientist leader is cute.
In addition to that, this new leader has a powerful ability to duplicate a card in hand.
Making a valuable card for duplication is a key to play this leader,
giving you a great feel of joy when a copies of strengthened card fills up all of your hands.
And the advisor, Factory Owner, will make them even easier to use.
However, since the ability’s target is a random card in hand,
Strategically emptying the hands to prevent from copying unwanted cards is really important.
- New Shaman -
Since the original shaman was a female leader, this new leader was added as a male form.
The early idea was to reincarnate recently died units,
But this was not working at all when mixed up with save and load.
So instead, we strengthened key ability of shaman, the Cursing ability.
The penalty of sacrificing ally units affects on playing crucially,
So quantity over quality is really important on deploying the units.
This will also be really effective when combined with units with summoning abilities.
The new advisor, Sinner, was designed to cover the hole in the defense caused by the leader ability.
Slow down the enemies with the advisor, sacrifice your units, and restore the defense line.
You will achieve victory easily.
- New Navigator -
New navigator’s ability concept was really hard to decide.
Unlike the merchant, it was hard to make even the candidates.
The early idea was to get high award with little chances,
but this gave no strategic choice making process at all.
With many considerations, we’ve made the ability useful to use the card with notoriety.
You might win the gamble and thus can use those cards without paying,
But when you lose, you will lose what you have in your hand.
And the new advisor, Cheater, will give you more chances to use the leader ability.
So that’s the all 6 new abilities and advisors.
In addition to those, 6 more advisors have been added together.
Hope you enjoy the update!
- Update Progress -
It’s already been a year since the last Christmas update.
Thankfully, many people gave us love and attention, and it made us possible to make a better result.
So this time again, we have thought a lot about what to update for the game.
This worries were mainly due to the limitation that we felt when we were updating the game last year.
What we noticed was that as the time goes, it gets harder to update the game.
Many of the in-game contents are tangled together,
so few changes would not affect the game much on the player's perspective,
but some systemic update could affect harshly, and the consequence could not be measured.
In addition to that, since there were changes in the team members,
Expectations of the effect of the updates does is diminishing too.
Still for this update we had many discussions and thoroughly planned.
The main idea was to have minimum risks, and maximum effects,
And that is why, again, we have decided to update the game on this, winter sales season.
<Since it is the longest sales season, we thought there would be more new players>
The contents we have discussed about was;
Adding mode that used military cards comes to siege the city,
Mode to play the game with limited resources,
And new abilities with new advisors.
Among those, we thought the last is the best.
This was mainly because of the practical reasons.
Adding new abilities could make players to have different experiences from the beginning,
And this would take less effort on making new art and sound resources.
The main problem was on the programming section, since new systems in the game takes bunch of time for both making and testing.
So the new contents were also had to be designed with the ideas those already were existed already in the game.
If there’s some time left after those, then we thought we could add more advisors.
Since the update contents was not that broadly affecting on the whole game,
So we put our effort mostly on developing the quality of the new leaders.
We have visited former colleagues and got helps for illustrations, sounds, and visual effects.
<Thankfully, qualified works could be done within an insufficient time>
Translations was also time-taking works.
Since we are supporting 13 languages,
We could not simply let there be user translators to follow up after just leaving a Korean and English texts.
So we have decided to translate it ourselves by using previous translations.
This was not easy, and not perfectly matched,
but better than expected since the new abilities were also based on previous existing ones.
We were worried that the update might be denounced by the users because of the insufficiency,
But thankfully, many loved it and left comments to cheer us up.
I guess this is a joy of developing games.
If, due to the realistic and practical reasons, we did not update the game,
I believe I would have regret the decision.
Thank you for reading this long article again,
Hope you have a great new year of 2023!
< 'Leaders' by Lizty>
< 'Merchant leader' by 오르 (Orr) >
Home page: https://www.CasselGames.com/
Steam Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1108370/Ratropolis/
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CasselGames.Ratropolis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CasselGames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CasselGames