This. Looks. Awesome. Maybe.

[Hatonastick]

http://www.puppygames.net/revenge-of-the-titans/

I must admit I'm not a huge fan of their games, but I do really _REALLY_ love their graphics style.  Always have.

[Ian Price]

That does indeed look good.

A cross between Advance Wars, X-COM and C&C? I think I might have some of that!

[BdR]

A few years back I sometimes played "Titan Attacks" and I recognished the graphics style immediately. It's kind of like pixelart but distinctively different.

[Hatonastick]

I just tried out the demo and I liked it.  Not surprisingly it starts off way too easy and very slow, but things start to ramp up though -- still I think they've got some mission balancing to do as, for example, I had one tough one followed by one that I could have done in my sleep.  Got some interesting ideas in it for a tower defence game though.  I've only just started researching robots so haven't gotten to try out anything beyond the basic tower (and upgrade) and the refinery, but the fields of research you can unlock sound interesting.  Typical Puppy Games game though, take something established and put their own spin and sense of style on it.  For example, despite being a big fan of the original Paradroid, I quite like their take on it (so does my 7 year old nephew who just likes collecting an army of allied robots).

Wonder if they still develop in Java.  Their older games were, and from the way their latest loads I suspect it's the same 'engine' that they used in earlier games.  Useful for cross-platform, but better them than me.  I never did like that language much.

Edit: This is going to sound weird, but some elements of Revenge of the Titans remind me of Dune 2000 (which I was a fan of, but then I was a fan of Dune II too).

[Wampus]

Graphics style is very appealing for sure. Also, extending & mixing up the basic elements of Tower Defence is fertile ground - a very good idea. I'm not sure the gameplay lives up to the potential here but its still fun.

[Hatonastick]

I think part of the problem is they take too long to ramp up the action so by the time you do start to get even close to the game living up to what is advertised, most normal players would have gotten bored and moved on.  All learning should be part of a separate tutorial series of missions so they can keep the main missions faster paced and try and keep the players interested.  Two other problems I've noticed with their current build are:

a) That their difficulty doesn't increase steadily, rather it jumps all over the place.  You can get a really hard mission followed by one you can do in your sleep.  It may have been done that way to give players a bit of a breather, but if that's the case it's probably going to backfire on anyone who is experienced as a gamer. 

b) It can take too long to research anything interesting.  You can spend too long researching things that don't add anything to your arsenal because they are just gateways to other avenues of research, which is heightened by the further issue that it's possible to end a mission without having earned enough cash to research anything.

In any case I agree that it has potential but is ultimately flawed.  Something that honestly, as much as I am a fan of their work, is how I feel about pretty much every game they've ever released but that might be because I'm not really their target market (although I do admire them from a distance).  My nephew on the other hand thinks their games are fantastic.  Either way it's not how I'd design it to play, but then again they are reasonably well known and possibly successful small Indie developers while I've never released a game of my own.

[Wampus]

My nephew on the other hand thinks their games are fantastic. Either way it's not how I'd design it to play, but then again they are reasonably well known and possibly successful small Indie developers while I've never released a game of my own.

Are you thinking of doing this sometime? (releasing a game)

If it were possible I would like to watch how an Indy group like Puppy Games go about the game design process. How many of the features of the game were in great detail on paper before they were coded? How much flexibility did they give themselves to make changes? And so on...

I'm working on three games concurrently; two hopefully commercial games and a long-term Turn-Based Strategy project that could take years. I found that with the two 'quickies' I had to take a gamble. Beyond a fuzzy point I didn't know if what I had on paper would translate into a fun experience to play. I knew I had to actually wait until I had an engine fully working before I could experience the game mechanics for myself. My first attempt at a puzzle game worked out well enough but an isometric platform game I was working on was too boring so I dropped it at initial Alpha and went back to the first design phase.

[Hatonastick]

I'd like to think I will one day.  I suspect it wont be all that good, but if I can get over the initial hurdle I suspect that I'll try and then keep on trying.

Or I might just give up and make a mod for Warband instead.

I think you'll find a lot game makers use an iterative process.  Basically come up with an initial design, create the prototype, rework, rework and rework again.  I've spent a lot of time reading development diaries over the years and that's been a rather common denominator between them all.  Reworking can involve a total rewrite BTW.

In any case I doubt you'll suffer from my inability to complete a working game.