By Hero Interactive

Now that Bubble Tanks Arenas is out the door we are beginning to shift more of our attention to wrapping up a great number of other titles that have been in development for a while.  StormWinds: The Mary Reed Chronicles is getting into the tail end of development as well as a few other small unannounced titles.  Hopefully next week we should be announcing one or two new games in development.

Stay in touch, more information is on the way. 

Check out a new screenshot of StormWinds: The Mary Reed Chronicles below:

Alright everyone, despite the fact that there has been some rampant impatient whining going on this blog, we DO still love you guys.  And although we’ve been extremely busy here and haven’t been able to respond to many of the 1500+ comments finding their way to us, we have been taking in all the feedback positive and negative.  Everyone has gave us a lot of very good feedback- I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s been pretty constructive and useful.

With that said, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve just updated the game up to Version 1.04 over at ArmorGames.com!

Version 1.04 includes a lot of changes:

• Added an “Efficiency Mode” button under the “Settings” menu (from either in game or the main menu).  Although we can’t guarantee anything, if you are experiencing heavy lag this new fancy button might just clear that up.  It adjusts the settings, effects, and frame rate and in our experience has really boosted the game speed on slower computers.
• The Sticky Enemies in the second arena “The Goober” has had it’s life dropped from 18 to 10.
• A new part for avatar tanks has been created: the “Mega Cannon”.  Essentially all it is is a glorified Heavy Cannon but for large class 4 or larger tanks with slow movement speed.  It deals 1 more damage than a Heavy Cannon but costs 1 GP less.  This combined with Auto Cannons, Massive Cannons, Bullet Busters, and Shields can give your large class tank a fighting chance and some really massive damage dealing capabilities (use Bullet Buster and Shield for defense).  If you complete the built in Arena “The Surprise” you can unlock it.  If you already beaten that Arena, it should automatically unlock for you.
• Each enemy Mine Layer can only drop a maximum of 8 mines.  So if you have an enemy with 2 Mine Layers it can do 16, etc…  If it creates more than 8 mines out, it’ll pop the oldest one.
• If an enemy is composed of only a Seeker Carrier and then you pop that, the Enemy automatically dies now.
• We’ve looked into the intro loader audio problem.  Not 100% sure  it is fixed, we’ll find out…
• If you try to edit an enemy with over 12 GP, you can now.
• Cheat Code now has an option to get up to 50 GP (you cannot save tanks with over 12).
• We’ve also made a significant number of miscellaneous security/bug fixes.

Also, if you’re worried about content quality, be sure to RATE stuff.   We are constantly going through and marking tanks to be featured.  We are also personally creating some new Arenas ourselves and are going to be stepping up the amount of content created by Hero.  To see what is Featured or made by Hero Interactive, simply check out the “Search” menus!

Additionally, currently, Bubble Tanks Arenas is only available (if it is legit) on ArmorGames.com.  This is good despite what you may think- if we find problems (and we always do) this is the file that we upload and patch with fixes.  Beginning July 1st, the game will be available everywhere (Newgrounds, Kongregate, and so on).

We will have a lot more news on projects coming out sometime soon.  Enjoy!

First of all, I have to apologize for letting the blog go unattended for so long. I got a good “sinuses on fire” kind of cold and basically did nothing for about a week. Jared got a touch of it, too, but we’re both feeling a bit better and everybody at the office has still been working good and hard. Speaking of which…

Check out this new screen shot from Bubble Tanks Arenas! As we’ve said before, in BTA you’ll be battling it out with enemies in arenas which are groups of bubblefields (the giant bubbles you fight inside of). This screen shot shows one bubblefield within an arena. You can see the “good guy” in the middle shooting the snot out of surrounding enemies.

Day three of the San Francisco trip…the Flash Gaming Summit!  It’s finally here!

After rising bright and early the team found their way to the summit where they were welcomed very warmly…even in the keynote address!  They were asked stand as one of the leading game development companies there!  That was an incredible honor and an incredible moment.  Throughout the day they listened and learned at the summit and Jared was even a speaker/moderator for one of the afternoon panels about sponsorship and licensing.   They didn’t come home with this year’s Mochi award but they were still incredibly excited to be nominated and to have BTTD shown among the other nominees.

Later that night they went to an after-party where they talked with TONS of awesome game developers and company owners including ArmorGames, Ninja Kiwi, the creators of the Several Journeys of Remus, AND MORE THAT I NEED TO FIND OUT!  It was another amazing night leaving the team happy and exhausted.

The next day was a bit of a challenge as they had to pull themselves out of bed to catch a flight out of the warm weather and fun.  They made it back to Michigan late in the evening and slept like babies once their heads hit their pillows.  It was another incredible year at the Flash Gaming Summit and we’re already looking forward to next year’s trip!

(Above: BTTD is honored as a nominee for a Mochi Award in the Best Strategy Game category! Below: Jared (far right) speaks as a moderator to a panel of biz professionals.)

(Above: The HI guys with Con of ConArtist productions (Last Stand 2) and their friend Brian. Below: Jared and Eric with  Mike/Tasslefoot with Armor Games. (He helped with This is the Only Level 2.)

(Above: Jared and Eric try to stay awake in the airport on the way home.)

Since Bubble Tanks Arenas Update #2 seemed to be successful, I thought I’d hold up my promise to do a follow-up post with more answers to your questions submitted via the comments section.  I’m not going to try to answer all questions here, but just a few.  Onward!

Q: Will you be able to face other people’s tanks?
A: Yes, sort of.  If I create enemies and arenas and upload them to the server, other players will be able to fight the enemies I created.  If I create an avatar tank (player controlled), you can’t fight that with your avatar tank.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bubble Tanks Tower Defense has just been RELEASED on ArmorGames.com!

Bubble Tanks Tower Defense takes Hero’s popular series into new genres and beyond! With 7 enemy types, over 11 unique tower paths, tower merging allowing for mega towers and mega-mega towers (the size of 16 towers combined!), and 52 whopping game modes, we’re pretty sure you’ll have plenty to keep you busy until the release of Bubble Tanks Arenas. If that’s not enough for you, just check the “FML” checkbox from level select and prepare to get your world rocked… er… blocked.

This has been a huge undertaking for Hero Interactive and we’re proud to finally release the game. A special thanks goes out to our fans for all of your support!

Want to play the game?  Then just CLICK HERE!

If you want to be totally awesome… give us your 10 rating!

Over the last few months we’ve really settled into our office.  It’s become almost like a second home to some of us!  We’ve got art, plants, books, a t.v., and even fun figurines on our desks including cows, dinosaurs, and action figures.  Check it out!

From top left: part of the “Wall of Fame”, the ever-expanding library, our new art, and some plants; Eric hard at work; Jimmy and K.C. having a meeting at our super high-tech and modern “conference table”; the game area which includes a big fluffy couch, a t.v., and a couple of game consoles (oh yeah, and the vacuum…we need that to keep things tidy!).

By Hero Interactive