Good morning/afternoon/evening. This week we updated BMC web servers then rolled them back, we updated SAS4 with some fixes and didn't roll back, we released an update for Battles mobile and the website got a fancy new accessory.
Would you like to know more?
Bloons TD Battles Mobile - Account System
Easily the biggest news for the last week is the addition of an account system for BTD Battles mobile.
Just like in SAS4 and BMC, you can sign in with a mobile NK account to have your progress stored safely on our servers, allowing you to move between devices and reinstall on the same device without losing your hard earned stats. It also means we can go into an account to fix up something that was broken and generally check out what could be going wrong when something goes wrong.
This last week has been a bumpy ride getting everything going smoothly but things are looking good and we've been fixing up the data for people who need their data fixed.
Remember, BTD Battles is free to play so if you've got some time on the bus/train/car/waiting room to kill, why not grab it and see how you go?
Ninja Kiwi Website - Videos
A small addition to the NK site this week comes in the form of videos. These are simply videos that any player can link on their profile for their friends and colleagues to see and enjoy (or not enjoy).
Along with this change is a "Featured videos" section under the social menu at the top of the page. With this we can feature cool videos about our games that players make, whether it's showing off some interesting gameplay, a great strategy or even a killer personality. We'll be expanding tools to systematically collect and sort your videos so we can see the coolest ones.
Questions from the Comments:
What are your plans for Daily Challenges once it is no longer feasible to create and test a new one for every day?
As we move away from BTD5, Daily Challenges are going to have to stop working how they currently do. This should be pretty far away but there are two options we like at the moment. One is to have some sort of automated generation of challenges. They will tend to be quite simple but could vary quite a lot in difficulty. The other is to have the game randomly go back through the previous 1200+ Daily Challenges and select one every day to be the "Daily" Challenge (for players wanting achievements and Monkey Money)
Why did people who own BTD5 Deluxe get the Steam version free?
The Steam version of BTD5 replaced Deluxe as we couldn't efficiently keep Deluxe updates going out. We gave Deluxe owners a Steam key to show our appreciation for their support :)
Is it difficult to program the same game on different platforms? Do your coders need to know several programming languages to make games available on different platforms?
For web games vs. mobile games almost nothing can be re-used. That means the game is built from the ground up for each platform. With things like BMC and Battles there is the BTD5 engine already, but the web version cannot be used for mobile (besides values and the experience in creating it).
The "mobile" games are coded in C++ and with magick the NK guys in Dundee are able to package them in the correct way for each platform (iOS, Android, Steam). This is the path the web games will be going along, so the devs can just make something in C# for Unity and Unity can let us package that in different ways.
So most of the coders just need one language at a time for actual work on the game, then someone will have the experience to make it all work nicely for whatever platform we need it to work on.
Thanks for your time, thanks for your questions, see y'all next week.
Aaron
We bought deluxe, got a key and now keep deluxe?! Thanks ninjakiwi...
I know this question has been asked recently - but are you going to create perhaps an app for the site, or at least make this site mobile friendly? If I go on my phone, it is a little hard to check my activity updates, check out the forums, and check out the blog.
Clan challenge?
In the future, will there be any BMC events that increase the effectiveness of Monkey Knowledge packs, like double xp, increased chance of legendary cards, etc.?
What Is 217.41 Divided By 4.3 + 732.47.3? I Bet You To Answer
Noticed my question comment on the last blog :D
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Pretty cool video feature NK :) kinda like how you are bringing random challenges back though... but the only question is, will it be still going? and how can you get driven at that time when it stops?
Personally I think having the older challenges looped is a better idea for everybody else, New challenges created only helps the older members (And while there's nothing wrong with that, Let me explain why it should be the first option) As you said, 1,200+ challenges. For anybody new to Ninja Kiwi and wants to earn AP to get on the leaderboards, That's a rather large requirement. And the vaults giving 40 AP each, It's going to deter a lot of users from actually trying the vaults. Having them randomly featured again as the day's Daily Challenges would give people motive to play, And if enough were completed from a vault they may go on to finish that vault. However it does also mean BTD5 no longer gets new challenges, Which kills it for the old members out of a content update.
What's the difference between rolling back the servers and not rolling them back?