BADLAND - Development Blog

It has been such an amazing month. BADLAND keeps getting new players and praising reviews which means that we have been very pleased to develop the game further. Your wait is finally getting over for the Day II to arrive as we have now finished the Dawn section of it. The first 10 levels of Day II will be available next week along with Update #2. We will bring the Noon section in June. Don’t worry, we are not adding IAP; the update is completely free. :) Also, in case you haven’t still finished the Day I, no need to worry as you can start playing Day II any time.

We have received lots of new reviews since the last blog post. Here are some of them:
9.5/10 – Capsule Computers
90/100 – metro.co.uk
9/10 – Pelaaja-lehti
8.5/10 – Game Informer
8.5/10 – EGM Now
8.7/10 – IGN Finland
8.7/10 – Leviathyn
8/10 – GamerHub.tv
8/10 – Front Towards Gamer
4/5 – App Chronicles
Top 10 games of April – PocketGamer.co.uk
Game of the month – Slide to Play
Five games to try – Financial Post
apfelcheck.de

Also players have written fantastic reviews and comments too. Here’s one example:
“Undoubtedly the best game I’ve ever bought: the Decadent and magical atmosphere is spectacularly breathtaking, while the gameplay is simple and at the same time highly competitive. My addiction to it is such that I’m even dreaming about it at night! :)”

That’s just awesome. Thank you all! :)

Today is a historic day for Frogmind and BADLAND. :) We just released our first update! At the very beginning when we started developing BADLAND we wanted to make a game that has a great potential for expanding. Our mission is to bring new content regularly. We have lots of ideas and stuff that we want to experiment so you can always expect something new when the update is released. In this current update we fixed some bugs and made some small adjustments and most importantly added four new multiplayer levels! Our next update on May will be huge, it will begin the Day II.

This is what’s new:
- Four new multiplayer levels!
- The level result screen now always animates the completed missions in the current session
- Fixed Apparatus level’s bigger power-up placement
- Small bug fixes

Here’s a picture from one of the new multiplayer levels, ROULETTE:

We are thrilled to say that after a week from the game’s launch there are now over 100 000 players of BADLAND. We are so happy to be able to continue developing the game and bringing you more content to play in the future.

BADLAND has been developed fully independently (no publishers, no investors) by our two-man indie game studio Frogmind with the help of a part-time audio designer, Joonas Turner. BADLAND is Frogmind’s first game and its development took one year of full-time work from both of the studio’s founders, Johannes Vuorinen (code) and Juhana Myllys (art).

BADLAND review roundup part 2:
5/5 – hitphone.fr
4/4 – Padvance.com
9.75/10 – Short & Sweet Reviews
4.5/5 – TouchArcade
9/10 – Gamer.nl
4/5 – BunchofGamers
4/5 – App Chronicles
8/10 – GamesReviews
App of the week – iPhoneclub.nl
Game of the week – AppAdvice
App of the day – Pocket-lint
Best new apps – The Verge
“But the birds that star in Frogmind’s game aren’t angry. They’re terrified.” – Wired.com
“recommending it to any mobile gamer is a no-brainer.” – Inglorious Gamer
“a satisfying, challenging trip through a nightmarish landscape” – Badass Digest
“Badland for iOS might be the mobile game you’ve been waiting for” – TECHi

The last 8 days have been by far the most exciting days in the project. It has been so amazing to see you players love the game as much as we do. We are really happy that this premium game without IAPs from a new indie studio has got all the attention we dreamed of and much more. We are now super happy and eager to be able to continue developing the game further and giving you new levels to play in the future. Thank you all for the feedback, reviews and support!

We have already started working on Day II. We have big plans for it and we want to continue bringing something new in the Day II also. We will bring a new update that will begin the Day II next month, on May. Even before that, really soon we will bring a smaller update with new multiplayer levels to play with your friends.

BADLAND has received mostly 5 star reviews everywhere in the world. Thank you! Here’s a fresh screenshot taken from AppAnnie that collects reviews everywhere in the world:

Here are two different kind of user reviews from users from the App Store:
Unreal game 5/5 stars
After 5 years of playing all the best itouch/iPhone games. This game goes in my top 3 ever. This means this game is incredible. This is like an Xbox360 arcade game on an iPhone. Unreal 10/10 A must buy. Definately worth $4!

HORRIBLE!!!! 1/5 stars
I paid 4.99 to fly some stupid black thing around a tunnel??? That’s it?? Complete waste of time and money, I don’t recommend this to anyone! If some people like it, hey, that’s great, but this app certainly doesn’t work for me!

And here are some reviews from critics:

AppSmile	5/5	“BADLAND is a standout game that we can’t stop playing.”
Slide to Play	4/4	“Badland’s unique gameplay and atmosphere make it a must-download.”
AppSpy	5/5	“BADLAND doesn’t simply look pretty, it’s an absolute treat to play”
Apple’n'Apps	5/5	“one of the best experiences on iOS.”
GamesAbyss	9.5/10	“At 3.99, Badland is an absolute steal, and should be picked up by anyone”
Appys.com	9.3/10	“one of the most beautiful games we’ve played this year”
Multiplayer.it	9.2/10	“Badland is easily one of the best iOS games of the year”
Destructoid	9/10	“A hallmark of excellence.”
Arcade Sushi	9/10	“definitely worth the asking price and deserves a space among some of the other artistic and visually stunning iOS games out there”
148Apps	4.5/5	“challenging and immensely enjoyable romp.”
Macworld	4.5/5	“chucks you headfirst into explosive environmental hazards, but each round leaves you wanting more”
Pelit	90/100	“Nokkela ja tuore variaatio yhden napin runner-genrestä pelattavaksi yksin tai yhdessä”
Maclife	4/5	“Simple, gorgeous, and brutal, Badland is a real treat for the senses that marvels as it challenges.”
Gamezebo	4/5	“frequently clever and always gorgeous side-scroller for iOS”
Edge	6/10	“with tighter controls Frogmind’s charismatic debut would be a memorable one”
Pocket Gamer UK	6/10	“A gorgeous-looking game, Badland doesn’t quite have the moves to make it a classic”

We are thrilled to say that BADLAND is finally out in App Store for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch! So far the response has been simply amazing.

Enough talking, first enjoy the official launch trailer:

And then, go and get the game from App Store:

Now it’s time for us to celebrate a little, and then continue developing more content to the game for updates. :)

BADLAND will be out next week, on Thursday April 4th! While you are waiting, here’s a new video that showcases one of BADLAND’s features: the Replay Mode. As you can see it has a little slider that allows you to adjust time. It’s a goofy little tool to fool around with. BADLAND also features Everyplay videos so you can easily share your replays to the world.

Johannes is at GDC in San Francisco at the moment. Please contact johannes@frogmindgames.com if you want to meet him or give BADLAND a test while he is there.

We have some announcements to make! Good news and bad news really. Bad news is that BADLAND won’t make it to the App Store this March but the good news is that it will be launched soon enough, April 4th to be precise! To celebrate this we give you a new gameplay trailer. This time we are showing you some really cool new gameplay elements, such as power-ups that adjusts time and, of course, portals!

GDC is also happening just a week before the launch, and Frogmind will be there. If you are interested to meet us or just want to give BADLAND a test drive, please let us know.

Also some new screens:

We are really happy to announce that BADLAND is DONE! :)

We want to thank all the testers that helped us out to catch bugs and tweak things to the perfection. We are now really, really satisfied with the result. We are very happy that we had time to implement every feature we wanted to the launch version of the game. But we are definitely not stopping to the launch. We want to bring new content and features in updates. We want to keep developing BADLAND. Thanks also to you all hundreds of beta tester applicants! We really appreciate you wanted to help us. Unfortunately we couldn’t take everyone in due to very limited available slots because of technical limitations.

The release date then? The actual date is still not official but we can say the release will be in month’s time. We will let you know the precise date as soon as we can.

BADLAND will support iPad, iPhone and iPod touch – and it’s an universal app so you only need to buy it once and you can play it in your every iOS device. And because the game supports iCloud, your game progress will be same in every iOS device you own. There are no in-app purchases – you get the whole game with one purchase. Oldskool style.

Here are some fresh screenshots from BADLAND in Night. Enjoy:

Next week we will publish a new fresh gameplay video showing something really cool. Stay tuned! Exciting times ahead! :)

This is the month when BADLAND gets its last finalizations and tunes. Almost all levels are ready but we want to test them a lot to make them perfect before the launch. This is where we would like to get some help from you people. If you are interested in beta testing BADLAND already before its launch, drop us an email at contact@frogmindgames.com. In the email, tell us something about yourself and which iOS devices (and their operating system version) you own. We have only very limited number of slots available so we unfortunately cannot take everyone. We are going to use TestFlight (http://www.testflightapp.com) to distribute the build to the chosen testers.

Some of you have asked about the multiplayer which was shown in our last blog post whether or not its available in iPhone and iPod touch. The answer is yes – it works exactly the same way as shown in the video playing with iPad.

Also, Juhana made a nice image about all the four different sections in the game: Dawn, Noon, Dusk and Night. Enjoy! :)

We are happy to announce that BADLAND will feature local multiplayer for up to four players playing in the same device! Here’s a quick video showing it in action in a noon level:

The multiplayer is all about survival of the fittest – with no rules. It’s completely okay to push your opponent to a spinning circular saw in order to survive. The multiplayer shares the same easy to grasp controls and the gameplay mechanics as the single player, so it’s easy to pick any friend (or foe) to play against you. However, skills matter in the end. The physical gameplay makes sure that every game is different.

BADLAND will feature 12 multiplayer levels at launch, and we will keep adding more levels in updates.

During the past few weeks, we adjusted our estimate for the launch and we confirm it is this March.