After 12 days in the top spot, StickWars has dropped to #2 in the overall paid app rankings. However, the 1.2 update was sent to Apple last Wednesday and should be live this week, and I’m expecting a great user response. Hopefully it will get bumped back up to #1!

In any case, it is still the #1 game, and I’m still working around the clock on bug fixes and enhancements. I just completed a massive graphics overhaul that ended up with the graphics look exactly the same (with maybe a few compression artifacts), but the game now runs around 20% faster. I went from using 160 separate png files for all the animations to 8 atlas sheets in the compressed pvr format. Now I can work on adding some cool fire particle-effects, since I can spare the processor usage needed.

I just finished my finals at college and am graduating in a few days, so StickWars is now getting all of the attention it deserves. There are some really cool new features coming, some ideas that are new to the genre but I think will really make it fun. I’ll give a hint: if you like the idea behind ‘Bowman’, you’ll love the new wizard spell .

Also, after realizing that like 80% of the google searches for StickWars that land on my website contain the terms “cheat codes” I’m going to satisfy those people who don’t have the patience to put in the time to get to level 30 before trying out all the cool powerups. This will be a surprise, with hints posted on my forums.

All these new improvements will be included in version 1.3.