Empires Rise
Designing, Building and Self-Publishing a Mobile Strategy Game
Summary
- The project
- Empires Rise is our own turn-based 4X strategy game, made to find out whether the genre could work on a phone without losing depth.
- What we did
- We designed, built and self-published it on iOS and Android in three months, with randomly generated hex maps, rule-based AI opponents, ads and in-app purchases (IAP).
- The result
- A launched game, and an audio, ads and IAP framework that still underpins our client projects today.
In brief
Internal project, self-published
Overview
- Timeline
- 2020 (3 months)
- Platform
- iOS, Android
- Genre
- Strategy
- Engagement
- Self-Published
Built with
- Unity
- C#
Empires Rise started as a passion project. David is a long-time fan of Civilization and The Battle of Polytopia, and wanted to see whether a turn-based 4X strategy game, with its exploring, expanding, building and fighting, could be made for phones without losing depth.
The game was designed, built and self-published in three months in 2020. Players chose from different civilisations, each with its own leader, and could play through a campaign or on randomly generated hex maps, training units, managing resources and taking territory from AI opponents.
As a self-published title, it also needed everything that comes after development: ads, in-app purchases, store submission and support after launch. The audio, ads and IAP framework David built for Empires Rise became the foundation of a toolkit Ocean View Games still uses on client projects today.
The Empires Rise case study covers the design, the procedural maps and AI, and the work of self-publishing in more detail.
Our Contributions
Perlin Noise Terrain
Random maps are generated with Perlin noise when a game starts, producing natural-looking landmasses, coastlines and terrain every time.
Faster Than Expected
The rule-based AI took its turns almost instantly, so fast that it had to be deliberately slowed down so players could follow what their opponents were doing.
A Framework That Lasted
The audio, ads and IAP framework built for Empires Rise has been expanded ever since, and still underpins Ocean View Games' client projects today.
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