Rock of Ages 2: Bigger & Boulder - Unit review: Cows

posted in ACE Team's Journal

Published November 04, 2016

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Unit review: Cows[/color]

Cow goes moo

Hello community! In this second developer post where we look at the changes made to defensive units we'll be evaluating the cow to see how it has transitioned to the new game.

[subheading]The new design[/subheading]
In the first Rock of Ages, the cow was the 'tier 1' walker unit, grouped with the elephants and the mammoth. In Rock of Ages 2 we got rid of tiers so that every unit has its unique behaviors. So now the cow is no longer linked to any other entity/group.

Actually, the cow has a completely new purpose in Rock of Ages 2. When thinking about the upgraded cow we came up with a new concept: "sticky cows"!

Check out the following video to get an idea of how this mechanic works:

I can't shake them!!

Cows are now grazing indifferent to enemy boulders. If a boulder happens to come in contact with a cow, the cow sticks to the boulder like glue difficulting the boulder's movement. The more cows the boulder runs over the more 'lumps' the boulder has to struggle with.

Hoping PETA doesn't see this...

Cows are an excellent way to obstruct boulders, but they are best combined with other units that will push the rock into the herd.

Placement:
Because cows work best in clusters we decided to deploy them in a 3x3 array in groups of 5. This way players are not forced to individually place every cow when trying to cover larger areas.

Cows are evenly distributed in a 3x3 area.

Note: The sticky mechanic is not persistent. Cows lumps can only resist a limited amount of contacts on the surface before they fall off. Still, getting tagged by a cow will considerably slow down a boulder making it a much easier target for other units.

Jeronimo!

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Hope everyone likes our new approach to cows in this new game. Stay tuned for future posts where we'll be looking at other defensive units and their specifics.

Until the next time!

[rollup="What is Rock of Ages II: Bigger & Boulder?"]Rock of Ages II: Bigger & Boulder is a game that improves on all aspects of the original. Up to 4 players can battle in crazy boulder mayhem. New impressive art periods, more historical characters and the funniest story clips we've ever made. All rendered with highly improved destruction / physics and effects - powered by our first Unreal Engine 4 game.