Stick war Guide
STORY:
In a world called Inamorata, you're surrounded by discriminate nations devoted to their individual nations technology and struggle for dominance. Each nation has developed its own unique way to defend and attack. Proud of their unique craft they have become obsessed to the point of worship, turning weapons to religion. Each believe that their way of life is the only way, and are dedicated to teaching their polices to all other nations through what there leaders claim as divine intervention, or as you will know it... war.
The others are known as: "Archidonis" the way of the archer, "Swordwrath" the way of the sword, "Magikill" the way of the mage, and "Speartons" the way of the Spear.
You are the leader of the nation called "Order", your way is of peace and knowledge, your people do not worship their weapons as gods. This makes you a mark for infiltration by the surrounding nations. Your only chance to defend is to attack first, and obtain the technologys from each nation along the way.
UNITS:
These are the different units that can be used in the game,
Miner-the simple miner. this unit goes to the mini mines to mine some gold. usually, the maximum gold it can collect is 100 unless you upgrade its bag.
SwordWrath-a club man at first but can be upgraded to a swordsman, this unit is a strong unit and other swordwraths are no match to it. defence is good.
Speartron-a strong unit which has a spear and a shield and it is very hard to beat. once it throws its spear it pulls out its sword and slaughters XD.
Archidon-a basic unit. it holds a bow and arrow and shoots the enemies accurately. its head shots can kill a swordwrath in one hit. flame arrows are available on upgrade.
Magikill-a strong unit. it has the power to stun you in one attack. it is slow but it can spawn swordwraths to aid it on battle. dies instantly in melee combat.
Giant-a very big unit that carries a large club and a man. its attacks doesn't kill that much but it usually stuns the enemies. good for support.
WALKTHROUGH:
Choosing Your Upgrades:
Each time you complete a stage you get 2 upgrade points, deciding where you place these upgrades will affect your strategy early in the game. Knowing what type of player you are might help you choose. Are you aggressive? If so perhaps you'll want to upgrade your swordwrath or speartons to be ultra powerful. Do you prefer economic might? If so you should put your points into your miner and statue income upgrades. Perhaps you're like me, the cheap type? In that case sit back and let your archidons do all the work. The point is that there are several allies you can choose and none is right or wrong. However, focusing on only one strategy could make certain stages more difficult. If I was to make one recommendation on this I would say, don't spread your points too thin, and don't put them all into one area.
Pro tip: If you don't use your points in a round they do carry over! If you find the early levels simple, you might find some advantage in saving your points. Be warned however, if you save your points and then go on to the next stage, you wont get a chance to use them until you pass that level, and since you didn't use any upgrades that level might be quite hard for you⦠see what I'm getting at?
Stage 1, Archidonis:
Take out those pesky Archidons!
If you get a club man out early you should take control of him by clicking him with the mouse and controlling him with WASD/arrow keys, and space to attack.
The advantage of controlling the unit yourself is that your attack is more powerful as well as your defense. Not only that, when you face an you should be able to move up and down the plane while running towards the , almost like a zig zag pattern which will make it much more difficult for the archidons to hit you. Once you're up close you will dominate.
Stage 2, Survive Until the Sun Sets:
s no good!
You just got a new unit and you're dying to try it out. Well we're mean because we give you an enemy with a big shield and spear perfect for killing new archidons. None of your units are powerful enough yet, so you will have to adapt a new tactic of outnumbering your opponent, because 3 clubs is better then 1 spear.
Man the fort!
If you can't seem to keep up with the pace of native attacks this is the time to learn one of the most important moves of the game, "Man the Fort." This will keep your army safe and also give you a chance to fire back at the enemy. Your arrows fired from this point are only as powerful as what you have upgraded on your statue, and is unrelated to the archidons upgrade. Every 3 men you have garrisoned or fortified will give you one garrisoned , with a 20 unit max you can have up to 6 garrisoned archidons.
Stage 3, Swordwrath:
s are good!
Now you will learn the power of the almighty head shot! At this point it's likely you have used some of your upgrade points on increasing the which was wise because swordwrath are very strong up close and will slice your club men in half. If the gets a head shot on the swordwrath it's over; one shot one kill, with this they will quickly pay for themselves.
Arrows vs statues!
Ok so you love the and you decided to make and entire army of just archidons? The problem you'll face is that the is strong against bare flesh but not against the stone statue. It will take forever for you to destroy it with just archidons. Thats why you have the club men! Although they are weak and pathetic they still serve a purpose, and don't worry I have a feeling you will be getting some swords soon enough!
Pro tip: Swordwrath can block with Q
Stage 4, Speartons:
Madness!
The Speartons are deadly, they can throw their spears and pull out a sword and keep on fighting. They also have shields and helmets which protect them from headshots and minimize damage from swords and arrows, so what will you do? Hopefully you have invested some upgrade points into your sword, because you will need a good combination of swordwrath and archidons to win here. I recommend more swordsmen then archidons. You really need to use numbers here, the Persians had the right idea, trust me.
Stop sitting back!
This is a great chance to play your units individually and try to pick off some of there miners, Because they have better units then you, and both sides are limited to the same number of units, which in short means: if you both have maxed out armies they will win. This means you're going to have to be on the offensive.
Stage 5, Swordwrath Counter:
Get that gold!
You have been warned that an attack is coming so don't waste your money right away on an army that you won't use. Spend your money on miners, and get as much gold as you can, and spend it all as late as you can. Don't forget that some units take longer to train then others. So if you try to make 5 speartons quickly you could die waiting on them to train.
Meat shield!
Speartons wear solid armor from head to toe, make good use of it. They are a good combo not only with archidons but with swordwrath because speartons will automatically take the front line and take the first damage which gives your swordwrath a chance to come in and counter attack.
Stage 6, Magikill:
Stunning spells!
Magikill might just make you rip your hair out when you first encounter them, you might even feel like there is no way around them or they are just too hard. But they are designed to force you to keep thinking up new strategy and not keep playing the same old way. For example, if you try the meat shield method on magikill they will just stun you over and over and create minions to finish you off. Their weakness is archidons and distance. You may need to fortify quickly to sucker the magikill into getting too close at times.
Attack or be attacked
You have to keep in mind that magikill are very powerful but are also equally expensive for the enemy to create. Without miners to get gold there will be no magikill for the enemy to train.
Stage 7, Free Pertland:
Multiple mayhem!
For the first time you'll face an enemy that has more then one unit type and you will start to see a new element of the game appear. You are facing archidons and swordwrath so you have to think about counters to these units. Try to get your swordwrath up close to their archidons and try to get your archidons far away from their swordwrath. You also have the spearton unit which is dominant against both these unit types however more expensive. If you're able to take control of a spearton you should do quite well. The meat shield method should work well for you in this situation.
Stage 8, Free Westwind:
Spears and spells!
You thought the sword combo was hard? Well you're in for a surprise! Get a swordwrath out ASAP! Take control and kill that first pesky using the zig zag technique you learned in stage 1. You can't afford to lose a miner this early in the game. If you can get a magikill out and combine him with archidons you should be okay because your magikill will stun his speartons and your archidons will take out his magikill, and your combo is better then his.
Stage 9, No Mans Land:
David vs. Goliath!
The key to this stage is controlling swordwrath. You need to get swordwrath out fast and bring them around the back of giants to distract the dumb creatures, this will give the rest of your army a chance to rock him and keep him from moving forward to your statue. A few hits on your statue and you are done, don't let him get close!
Pro tip: When you are controlling the swordwrath you can attack the giant then run around to his back side before he hits you and attack again and continue this over and over.
Stage 10, Ambush:
Don't die!
Well you remember how to create an army for the ambush right? Invest all your money into miners. But this time there is a twist! A giant is in the mix and attacking your amry, you will need to spend some money on swordwrath and take the giant down while working on your economy. The key here is save enough to get a magikill and a few s. Be warned that magikill take a long time to be created. However, once he's ready he can hold off infantry with his stun spell.
Stage 11, Ice Hills:
Your confidence is your weakness!
If you haven't noticed by now, right before you take the enemy statue down, they will send a massive wave as a last resort. This can trick you over and over again because you will feel like you've won it, then they send there reserves at you, and you're not ready. I would suggest keeping some gold in reserve, and being ready for anything.
Stage 12, Last Stand:
This is as close to playing another person with the same units as you as you're going to get until B-Rock and I make this a multiplayer game! You're playing against a cunning enemy with archidons, swordwrath, speartons, magikill, and giants! You're going to have to use everything you have learned up to this point, use every strategy and trick, as well as speed and skill.
THE STICKWAR DEVELOPER INTERVIEW (as seen on stickpage)
Stickpage Interviews Jason Whitham (CRAZY JAY) and Brock White (B-ROCK):
Q: CRAZY JAY, tell us about the making of Stick War:
CRAZY JAY:
This game has been in the making for at least 3 - 4 years! Long ago I wanted to make this game but I did not have the ability programming wise, I asked twoDimensinalArray if he wanted to help me get the job done and we set out to make a game which would be almost a part 2 of Champion Archer with a lot more to do. However 2Darray became very busy with other projects and felt like he had to walk away from this one before we got off the ground. It must have been at least a year of the project sitting around with no one to breathe life into it until I asked my good online friend Brock if he was interested in taking on the massive task of programming Stick War. It seemed to be perfect because Brock had been wanting to make a game very similar but was just as pathetic at art as I was at programming, and we both had a passion for RTS games! It was a perfect match. Brock had the challenge of starting from scratch on the engine while ideas rolled back and forth, we knew this game was going to be truly great fun, at least for us. The issues came with Brock being in UNI, he wouldn't have much time for side projects like this, and progress was very slow some times we wouldn't touch the game for months! Eventually as the YEARS went by we realized a new problem, I was getting better at art and animation and he was getting better at programming and we found ourselves re-doing things, and other things not looking good together. We decided enough was enough and we had to finish this thing. I live in Canada and Brock lives in Australia, I told him that next time he has a break from school I would fly him to Canada and we would finish this game. In Dec 2008 Brock flew all the way to Canada and stayed at my office for two and a half months! We thought this our chance we could get wrap up Stick War in a week and have another 2 months to make a even bigger better game, oh man we were wrong! What ended up happening was we kept coming up with more and more ideas to add to the game that by the time he had to fly back we still weren't finished! That and playing Street Fighter and table tennis all day! It's now May 2009 and we are just putting the final touches on it. It has been a great experience and alot of hard work and fun making this game, but I'm very happy with the result. And meeting Brock in real life who would have thought, I made a great friend for life out of it. I can see us putting out more great games in the future.
Q: B-ROCK, what was making the game like for you give us a summary of your experience:
B-ROCK:
I love thinking about games I could develop or just games that would be kool. A long time fantasy of mine had been to create a game where you were a warrior in an actual battle that was taking place around you.
So naturally when we began this project I was excited. It was the sorta thing I had always wanted to make (although in the future a 3D game along these lines would be great to work on aswell) and I got alot of the code written in the first set of Uni holidays. As I moved on to my next year of Uni however I had less and less time to work on the project and this meant that the development of the game ended up dragging on for a long time.
It was at this point (at the end of my second year at Uni), that I travelled over to Canada to met Jay and do some work on Stick War. This trip to Canada would have to be the highlight for me, as I got to work with Jay directly within the office.
Q: What are your three favorite video games of all time:
CRAZY JAY:
The best video game ever was Ultima Online, I also love Age of Empires 2, and Marvel vs Capcom 2.
B-ROCK:
I don't think I will be able to limit this to three. I basically went through periods in which I played a few games heaps. The games that I played the most are:
Golden Eye/Perfect Dark: I put them under one heading as they were sort of similar games and I played them heaps around the same time.
Age of Empires II: my friend introduced me to this before I even had a computer. This game got me addicted to the RTS game genre.
Operation Flashpoint: this was a game that many people didn't warm to because of it being to realistic. For some reason I did and subsequently played it for hundreds of hours.
Halo series: had awesome fun at LAN parties in my last few years of high school.
Rome Total War: probably as a result of my obsession with ancient warfare this would have to be my favorite game of all time.
Q: B-ROCK, how did you first meet CRAZY JAY? What is he like in real life:
B-ROCK:
Jay first contacted me about 4-5 years ago about another game I was making at the time. Most of my contact with Jay has been over msn chatting about the games we are making or ideas for new games. We also had the occasional game of chess (most of which I won ).
I got the chance to meet Jay when he invited me over to Canada to work on Stick War. In real life Jay is pretty much the same as he was on msn. Playfully competative about everything . One of the first things I did upon arriving at the office over in Canada was to play everyone in a game of table tennis. Yes there is a table tennis table in the middle of the office... There was also an arcade machine too. We probably spent too much of our time between these two things while I was over there, delaying the release of Stick War.
Q: CRAZY JAY, what is B-ROCK like in real life:
CRAZY JAY:
Unless you are from Australia and even then you might have a hard time understanding what he is saying, his accent is very strong and he seems to say entire sentances all at once. He is a health nut and every time I turned around he would be making salads. He is very bright but can't focus on one thing for very long is distracted easy, like a new puppy, but he pees on the floor less. I will never forget when I took him sledding and pushed him full speed and he flew 10 feet off the jump straight on his back... OUCH!
Q: What is your next project:
CRAZY JAY:
Honestly I have tried hard to not think about other projects, but I can't wait to start another big game when this one is done, most likely a stick figure game.
B-ROCK:
I've got a few ideas floating around but nothing for sure yet.
Q: What is your favorite flash game on the internet:
CRAZY JAY:
I'm not modest, Stick War! It's a real challenge even for me.
B-ROCK:
I like a few of the tower defence games. My favorite one would have to be Desktop Tower Defence.
Q: After all this time is Stick War fun for you? What is your favorite level? What is your favorite unit? What is your favorite strategy:
CRAZY JAY:
Most of the time spent on Stick War is focused on finding bugs and fixing things, when I get a chance to play it strictly for the fun it really is a lot of fun, the music is really great and doesn't get old very fast, like some. My favorite strategy would be getting fire arrows as fast as I can, I also love the get gold for nothing upgrade.
B-ROCK:
I would of played Stick War a million times by now, and any game after this many plays starts to get repetative. However, I have not tested insane mode nearly as much so this is still quite fun for me as its challenging.
I have a few favourite levels... I like the last level because the boss giant is awesome, Jay did a good job of making it crack out of the statue. I also enjoy playing the magikill level as I like owning minions with my archers. The head shot animation when the minions get hit by archeres is very satisfying.
My favourite unit would probably have to be the spearton. It looks awesome when you get a group of them and form a phalanx across the field.
My favourite strategy is to build a giant on the last few levels and use them to defeat wizards and enemy statues easier. Its satisfying to charge a giant in while taking lots of damage and get to the enemy statue and take it down while all there units are attacking your giant.
Q: B-ROCK, is it true that you saw snow for the first time when you came to Canada:
B-ROCK:
Yes, we don't get much snow back here in Australia (only at a few locations). It was a great experience though, spent a fair bit of time slipping over while walking around outside.
Jay also took my taboggoning at this park he used to visit when he was younger. There was a large crowd of kids tabogoning off this jump they had set up.
Jay told me I had to do that before I went back to Australia so after some convincing he got me to do it. However while descending the down ramp he chased me and pushed me, this resulted in me getting to much air and doing a sort of half backflip flail move that resulted in me sliding down the rest of the hill on my backside. Moral of the story Jay can not be trusted!!! Nar j/k
Credits:
Game Concept by: Jason Whitham (CRAZY JAY) & Brock White (B-ROCK)
All Programming by: Brock White
All Art & Animation & Story by: Jason Whitham
Game Balance by: B-Rock and CRAZY JAY
Special Thanks to:
Jazza - Intro Music
Adam Westerman - Map
All our beta testers
twoDimensionalArray - Began the project with years ago but never got off the ground.
Music:
Battle of the Shadow Elves - Chris Haigh
Field of Memories - Waterflame
Entering the Stronghold - Denny Schneideme
