Next up in our coverage of Casual Connect USA is an interview regarding one of our favorite Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 games: Royal Revolt. The game comes from a collaboration between two German studios, Flare Games and Keen Games.
During last week’s event, we spoke with Georg Broxtermann, the Co-founder and Director of Business Development at Flare. He revealed how Royal Revolt came to mobile Windows platforms, some very encouraging performance numbers, and what we can expect from Flare Games in the future. See the video after the break!
Reverse Tower defense
Royal Revolt tells the story of a young man who returns from magic training to find that his father has died and his wicked aunts and uncles have taken over the kingdom. To get back what is yours, you’ll have to attack the stolen castles and towers instead of defending them. Hopefully the little prince has enough money left when it’s all over to rebuild everything!
Players directly control the prince by touching anywhere on the screen; Windows 8 users also have the option to use the mouse. Approach an enemy and the prince will attack automatically, making combat fun and easy.
You’ll face hordes of foes and dangerous defenses, so you’re also going to need an army of your own. Just tap the buttons at the bottom left corner of the screen to summon soldiers, archers, and more types of troops. At the bottom right are your spell buttons. These allow you to heel your troops, blast enemies, and more.
The prince, his troops, and magic spells are all fully upgradable. Spend coins earned from completing levels or gems bought via In-App Purchase (IAP) to make those improvements. Royal Revolt is free to play on all platforms.
Successful revolt
At Casual Connect, Flare Games announced some impressive performance figures for Royal Revolt on mobile Windows platforms. The Windows Phone game has been downloaded over 750,000 times, and the Windows 8 version (which released later) over 500,000 times. That’s more than a million Microsoft fans enjoying the game. Georg tells us that IAPs are quite strong on both platforms as well.
The strong sales result not just from the Royal Revolt’s high quality, but also the promotion Microsoft has given the game. By featuring it prominently on the Windows store, they’ve made it easy for players to notice and download the game.
Microsoft Germany also played a part in convincing Flare Games to port the game to Windows Phone in the first place. We heard a similar story from Handy Games (also a German developer), which seems to indicate that Microsoft Germany is working hard to get local developers onboard with Windows Phone. The only thing they’re not doing (sadly) is convincing these developers to publish their games with Xbox branding… But that’s a trend we’ve known for some time now.
More from Flare in the future
The most important thing is that strong developers like Flare Games are supporting both Windows Phone and Windows 8. Considering the success of Royal Revolt, it should come as no surprise that Flare and Keen plan to release the in-development Royal Revolt 2 on our platforms in the future. Flare’s most recent iOS release Throne Wars (a multiplayer strategy game with MMO elements) is also a contender for mobile Windows platform as well.
In the meantime, the best way to ensure we see more games from Flare is to grab Royal Revolt. If you like it well enough, let them know by buying a few gems in-game.
- Royal Revolt – Windows Phone 8 – 284 MB – Free – Store Link
- Royal Revolt – Windows 8 – 306 MB – Free – Store Link
Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!
