It’s a great chance for us to put up a page on our exDev website to showcase games that made with ex2D. It’s also an appreciation to our users with creative mind and lots of hard work!

You can find the showcase page here: http://www.ex-dev.com/showcase/

Of course we also includes our own game Money Witches in the page. Go check out the new gameplay footage!

If you have a high quality game made with ex2D please let us know, we can showcase your game as well!

Money Witches Website

Money Witches Trailer

You can find all the media of the game in the new website, also there’s a very comprehensive “guide” about how to play the game. If you are reading this post on your mobile device, it’s a good chance to experience the responsive website layout for Money Witches

More information of the game will be released on the Money Witches website. This blog will keep on focusing on development tips and stories. We will also make a Web version of the game, it will be playable on the website too.

Please go to the website and watch the trailer, it’s awesome!

If you like it please “like” the youtube video, subscribe to our channels. It means a lot to us!

This time three lucky winners stand a chance to win a copy of the newest addition to their
hugely successful Unity series.

Keep reading to find out how you can be one of the Lucky Winners.

Overview of Unity iOS Game Development Beginner’s Guide

• Dive straight into game development with no previous Unity or iOS experience.
• Work through the entire lifecycle of developing games for iOS.
• Add multiplayer, input controls, debugging, in app and micro payments to your game.
• Implement the different business models that will enable you to make money on iOS games.

Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter.

How to Enter?

All you need to do is head on over to the book page (Unity iOS Game Development Beginner’s Guide)and look through the product description of this book and drop a line via the comments below this post to let us know what interests you
the most about the book. It’s that simple.

Product description for Unity iOS Game Development Beginner’s Guide book:

http://www.packtpub.com/unity-ios-game-development-beginners-guide/book

Winners from the U.S. and Europe can either choose a physical copy of the book or the
eBook. Users from other locales are limited to the eBook only.

Deadline

The contest will close on 14/05/12 PT. Winners will be contacted by email, so be sure
to use your real email address when you comment!

How Do We Pick Winners

I wrote the random picking process we used in the last giveaway contest  in previous post.  This time we will give 3 roll chance to reader who leaves very useful information in the comments, and 1 roll for all valid participants.

This means if you want to increase your chance to win, please tell us in a specific way why this book attracts your interest, any information regarding what you want to learn and what you want to achieve with Unity is also helpful.

Now let’s get it started and good luck to all of you!

Thanks to Packt Publishing for giving us the opportunity again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzKzVk1gq1o

If you like the game, please “like us” on youtube, and you can also follow our facebook page for more updates:

http://facebook.com/moneywitches

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6bzAWxl4ZM

As you can see in the video, we already have the core gameplay mechanics and graphics working well. And we are adding exciting new features to it everyday!

To learn more about the game, please read our game announcement blog post:

http://abitgames.com/2012/blog/money-witches-1st-announcement/

If you like the game and want to play it on your favorite iOS device, please support us by:

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to the Pre-Release Event

===================================

phoqueyou

bitdefuser

Tutelage

chris

Rdontje321

boud

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Congratulations to them! And a huge thanks to all readers that commented in the post. We plan to do this again with Packt Publishing so good luck next time! 

If anyone interested in how did we picked the winners, here’s the process:

1. We gathered all valid comment (it means you have to at least tell us what interests you in the books), and put the commentators’ names in a list.
2. We marked comments with detailed information or elaboration, since these comments are more helpful for the book publisher.
3. We put the names list into this online random name selector: http://primaryschoolict.com/random-name-selector/#
4. We rolled 6 times total, each time removes the winner from the list. The first 3 names are rolled from the full list, and the last 3 names are rolled from the marked list. And then we have 6 winners!

We are excited to announce Money Witches for iPhone/iPad today, the game we have been working on since August 2011.

Money Witches is a coin exchange themed drag-n-drop block falling puzzle game, featuring smooth multi-touch control, engaging combo system, characters with different play styles, and highly competitive and entertaining player vs player match. The game is aimed to bring back the hype of arcade combat puzzle genre to competitive puzzle game players. We have set up a Pre-release sign up page for all the arcade puzzle lovers so they can tune in to get updated information of the game, sharing the good news to friends and community, and get a chance to involved in our beta testing and win an AppStore Promo code when the game is released!

Check out the Pre-release sign up page of Money Witches:

http://www.moneywitches.com

And like our facebook page if you’re interested in the game:

http://facebook.com/moneywitches

The Story of Money Witches

When we were young, there was a time when we went to arcade and play combat puzzle games against each other. We played Tetris, Columns, Puzzle Bobble, Puyo Puyo with our friends face to face when we wanted to find out who’s smarter. We found these arcade combat puzzle games were just as competitive and entertaining as Street Fighter and Tekken.

However as the arcade games are replaced by consoles, shooter games taking over the consoles, and all we got today for puzzle games are match-3s made for casual and social users. Players can still play Bejeweled Blitz with their friends but there’s no skill based combos, “in your face” style massive block attacks, or crazy counter attack comeback out of opponent’s offense. The enormous casual user market seems to set the tone of puzzle games: simple, quick and random. But we do believe that there’re a lot of gamers craving for a puzzle game that they can have a skill-based, highly competitive match with their friends again.

Here’s Money Witches with the mission. The inspiration of the coin themed block falling puzzle game comes from an old classic NEO-GEO game “Money Puzzle Exchanger”. Although the game was mad fun and one of our favorite, we don’t quite happy with the old school button based control and how strict player has to build combos with a certain style. With mobile devices’ multi-touch screen, we finally find a sweet spot between old school hardcore puzzle games and easy accessible mobile puzzle games. There are also other system that we invented like character specific ability and fair usage of item, to help giving a reborn to the arcade combat puzzle genre and give people who enjoy intellectual competition a brand new way to prove themselves.

On a side note, according to all the tests we run with our friends and families, the game is very attractive to casual users that never played video games before thanks to the intuitive control and elastic pacing. All of our moms, sisters and girlfriends became addicted to the game. And they can still refresh their highscore by keep playing and learn new tactics

The game is still in development and we are looking forward to release it to AppStore in this summer.

Game Description

Money Witches is a block falling puzzle game for iPhone and iPad. Player uses multi-touch control to drag and drop coins all around the board, stacking coins with the same value to convert it to a higher valued coin. For example as soon as he puts five “1 Cent” coins together, they will turn into a “5 Cent”, giving player score as well as space on board. A lot of bonus score is rewarded for stacking two “5 Dollar” coins together and clear them up. That should be player’s immediate goal. There will be coins added up to the board on a timely basis. The more score player gets, the shorter time in between the coin filling up. So player has to move faster turning many cheap coins into a few expensive ones, creating space for survival. The game ends when the board is full of coins.

The gameplay twist is how coins have various values and they turn into higher values on a “5-2-5-2-..” base system. It goes with “five 1 Cent turns into one 5 Cent”, “two 50 Cent turns into 1 Dollar” and so on. (There’s no quarter dollar or 20 Cent like in the real world, to simplify the situation.) The most beautiful part of the game is when player chains the exchange by putting together five “1 Cent” and dropping a “5 Cent” coin on top of it. He will end up getting a “10 Cent” out of two steps of exchange. Player can keep the combo going as long as he has enough “10 Cent” coins to make a “50 Cent” and so on. If the player is good at planning and calculation, he can also set up the whole board carefully, so it’s only needed to make one move to start the chain and eventually clear all the coins on board.

The story of Money Witches happens in a fantasy world where witches with magical power can make money out of exchanging coins. The main character names Molika. She’s a young witch, energetic and greedy. She wants to get better with her magic to make money and become the richest woman in the world. In the game player can choose from several characters to play, and each one has a unique ability that requires a completely different play style and strategy than others.

Each time the game is played, player will get rewarded with various number of bonus gold depending on his performance. Player can use the gold to purchase item, and use them in game to better chain combos or get through tough situations.

The game features different game modes including an endless challenge mode like classic Tetris, a one-minute “Gold Rush” mode for busy users, a trial mode where player learns character specific skills and solve challenging puzzles, and an iPad exclusive VS mode that two players fight against each other with a single device. iPhone VS mode via Bluetooth and Wifi is also planned for future updates.

Money Witches is full of actions and smart strategies. The multi-touch drag-n-drop control is so smooth that player’s finger can follow his mind with no obstacle or delay whatsoever. The combo system and character skills are designed to give player the possibility to be creative about their strategy and play style. Not only can they practice their favorite combo set up to work in different situation, but also they can always come up with new way to deal with the situation on the fly. If you feel like smarter than match-3 games that full of randomness, or you’re a fan of old school block falling games, or you just enjoy playing with coins and the crispy cheering sound when coins collide with each other, this game is perfect for you and we guarantee you that it’s worth playing for thousands of hours if not for years.

Pre-release Sign Up

Since we want to make the game played by the most enthusiastic arcade puzzle game lovers. We really would like to spread the word as much as we can. So we set up a Pre-release sign up page that you can tune in with your email address. You will get the following perks if you sign up:

• Get the latest update of the game including characters information, vs game mode progress and learn the strategy from combo videos.
• Write us your feedback and suggestion for the game, we would love to know what do you think!
• Get the chance to participate in our public beta testing for the game!
• Depending on how many times you shared the page, you can win an AppStore Promo code to download the game when it’s released!
• Easily share the news to your friends who loves arcade combat puzzle games!

If you feel the need for an arcade style puzzle game on your iPhone/iPad just like us, or if you want to fight against your friend in a combat full of strategic game plans and quick time intellectual decisions. Then please sign up and help us to spread the word!

Sign Up For Money Witches Pre-Release Now!

Our official released version of ex2D on both Asset Store and web store are made for Unity 3.4.2, the last official release of Unity engine. We also provide ex2D beta version for Unity 3.5 beta6 (3.5.0b6) through our mailing list.

If you haven’t subscribe yet, you can click here to get registered.

Since we don’t have a compatible version for Unity 3.5 RC1 or RC2 at the moment, and we are not planning to do so until Unity 3.5 official release. We would beg your pardon and recommend our users to stick with Unity 3.5 beta6 version for now. If you don’t have the install package, I would happily provide the links below:

Unity 3.5 Public Beta (RC1)

Mac OSX

Windows

Unity 3.5 Public Beta (Beta 6)

Mac OSX

Windows

Unity 3.4.2 

Mac OSX

Windows

Unity 3.4.1

Mac OSX

Windows

Many thanks to game.ceeger.com to compile a list for Unity history versions download! You can follow the link to get even older version of Unity!

Great news for our readers! We have teamed up with Packt Publishing and are organizing a Giveaway for you and six lucky winners stand a chance to win a copy of the best-selling books on Unity.

First let’s look at these two new books for leveling up your Unity skill:

Overview of Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials:

•  Kick start your game development, and build ready-to-play 3D games with ease.
•  Understand key concepts in game design including scripting, physics, instantiation, particle effects, and more.

Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter

Overview of Unity iOS Essentials:

• Learn key strategies and follow practical guidelines for creating Unity 3D games for iOS devices.
• Learn how to plan your game levels to optimize performance on iOS devices using advanced game concepts.
• Full of tips, scripts, shaders, and complete Unity 3D projects to guide you through game creation on iOS from start to finish.

Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter

How to Enter?

All you need to do is head on over to their respective book pages ( Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials book page, Unity  iOS Essentials book page)and look through the product description of these books, then go back to this post and drop a line via the comments below to let us know what interests you the most about these books. It’s that simple.

Product description for Unity 3.x Game Essentials book  :

http://www.packtpub.com/unity-3-x-game-development-essentials-with-c-and-javascript-will-goldstone/book

Product description for Unity iOS Game Essentials book:

http://www.packtpub.com/unity-3d-essentials-for-ios-games/book

Winners from the U.S. and Europe can either choose a physical copy of the book or the eBook. Users from other locales are limited to the eBook only.

Deadline

The contest will close on 15/02/12  PT. Winners will be contacted by email, so be sure to use your real email address when you comment! Good luck everyone!

I’m currently at hometown in China with my family. And everyone in aBit Games will take a one week vacation to spend time with family and friends. We will also meet up in Xiamen a couple of days later, to have cool parties and maybe some game jam action!

Although it’s gonna be a great time, we are sorry to inform ex2D users that we will not be able to provide support during this week. We recommend you to stick with stable version of Unity and ex2D if your project is in a hurry for delivery.

Happy new year and see you all next week!

aBit Games and exDev Team