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Battle for the AllSpark
While working at Vicarious Visions, I was encouraged to leverage my ties with Agora Games to design heavily integrated Nintendo Wi-Fi features for Transformers DS.
Background
Two versions: Autobots and Decepticons.
The game would need SOME kind of connectivity between the games over Nintendo Wi-Fi, but it would be difficult to implement quality, lag free, online head-to-head with transforming robots.
Concept
While designing the downloadable goals for Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, I realized... this could be automated! With a few parameters like a level and a score benchmark, you have a simple new downloadable goal. Why not generate new downloadable goals every day for Transformers?
As a separate Nintendo Wi-Fi feature, I proposed not two or four player head-to-head, but rather as-many-people-as-we-can simultaneous competition! Avoiding the lag issue, players could connect with each other online, participating in some kind of single player mini-game, indirectly affecting each other's performance by launching missiles as they perform well.
With some additional design, and great contributions from the rest of the Vicarious Visions team, these two ideas ended up fusing together. Daily downloadable goals became single player battlefields in which players could accumulate scores that affect a global battle, with every Autobot player pitted against every Decepticon player in a daily struggle to regain pieces of the AllSpark!
The Transformers DS Online Community is built around this feature, which came to be called the Battle for the AllSpark. The main page of the site highlights the current status of the AllSpark: which pieces are held by the Autobots and which have fallen into Decepticon hands.
How to Play
Autobot and Decepticon players connect to Nintendo Wi-Fi and download a new challenge every day.
Daily Challenges include:
- Race to the Finish
- Throw Cars, Lamp Posts, etc.
- Survive as Long as Possible
- Kill all the Drones
- Destroy as Much as Possible
Skill is rewarded, but new players can actually contribute as much (or more) to the war effort than experienced players by playing challenges repeatedly!
Contribution points are aggregated on the Transformers online community site. Community members can see which side is winning throughout the day, and rally the troops on the forums - encouraging players on their side to catch up and win the day's battle!
In-Game Rewards
Why participate in the Battle for the AllSpark?
No matter how many contribution points you earn, and even if your side loses the day's battle, you'll earn Wi-Fi Tokens! Top contributors and high score earners recieve additional Tokens. And if your side wins, you recieve additional Tokens for that too, even if you barely contributed to the war effort!
What do you do with Wi-Fi Tokens?
Wi-Fi Tokens unlock in-game rewards, like brand new vehicles that you can transform into, giving you an edge in both the single player campaign and daily online AllSpark challenges!
Favorable Game Reviews
Check out what notable game reviewers had to say about the feature I helped coordinate:
Transformers DS has what I think is a great idea. You see, every week, they have what is called the "Allspark Wars"...
One interesting feature is the game's Wi-Fi mode. In an unexpected move, you can't hop online for some Autobot on Decepticon deathmatch action. Instead, you take part in week-long "wars" where you and your fellow Transformers: Autobots owners band together against those who purchased the Decepticons version of the game…It's certainly an unorthodox online mode, but after spending a few days with it, I became quite addicted to it.
The interesting aspect is that people playing the Autobots version of the game are all on one side, while everyone that bought the Decepticons version is on the other.
What is cool, though, are the daily challenges offered for download from transformersgame.com/ds... If your side wins, and you contributed greatly to that win, it can lead to in-game rewards.