The Ninja Blog

Brand New BTD5 Update – Daily Challenges! Log in each day and get access to a cool challenge – different modes, tracks, and restricted towers each day, but always a fun test of your skills. Beating it will win you Monkey Money and make progress against 4 new Achievements. Each Challenge is only available for 24 hours, and playing every day is the only way to beat them all. Daily Challenges require that you have all of the towers unlocked, so Log In, get to Rank 18, and play the Daily Challenge!

Bloons Tower Defense 5 Daily Challenges

Ok so this has been in the works for a while now and I’m happy to say its finally out!

Bloons Tower Defense 4 Android

The game is every bit as awesome as BTD4 web or BTD4 iphone

If you’re one of the hundreds of people who email us all the time about BTD4 android – you can stop now. Go buy the app.

Many of you have been enjoying our super sweet multiplayer shooter SAS3. Well in what could only be described as a moment of madness, overwhelming good Christmas spirit, or both, SAS3 is available now, free for what may be a limited time

Get SAS: Zombie Assault 3 for your iPhone and iPad here!

Merry me-mas.

Play Bloons Tower Defense 5 here

Bloons Tower Defense, or Bloons TD as we now call it has evolved a lot since the first version, for those that don’t remember or never played Bloons Tower Defense this is what it looked like:

Now, bear in mind that that game is now more than 4 years old, and at the time was a pretty sweet game. So sweet in fact that Stephen and I (was just the two of us at the time) cranked out the sequel in 3 months. Bloons Tower Defense 2 was an effective update for fans that were already crying out for more, we added in a new tower, the Boomerang Thrower, and a first for TD games, on track placeable items, glue and roadspikes.

Coming nearly a full year later was Bloons Tower defense 3. And this was the big one. We had hired our first artist and my own art “skills” were retired. Bloons Tower Defense 3 was a huge hit for us and got more plays than both previous versions combined. This was the version that the first iPhone version “Bloons TD” was based off (developed by our Scottish buddies Digital Goldfish).

The step up from BTD2 to BTD3 was huge. More towers, more tracks, and more awesome. How to top that?

Well, we knew we had to deliver and with our team and expertise growing we threw it all into Bloons TD 4. It took another year and all our hopes and dreams plowed into it. Again, the result was a great success with fans and critics alike. Now raising the bar with each successive release is all well and good. Hell, we strive to do that for you all. It’s quite literally our business to do so. But the downside to that is when you look at a game you’ve released like BTD4, and you say. That’s it, that’s perfect. Topping that becomes quite a high stress sort of challenge.

So we let it ride for a while, released an expansion pack to tide people over. The thing is it doesn’t go away (that’s actually super awesome by the way) and you have to confront the challenge head-on at some point. So, back in the beginning of the year we started planning and by March 2011 we were under way.

What you see in Bloons TD 5 is the 5th game in the series but I wanted to talk a little about the journey here and now the end result is available for you all to play. Here’s an image by the way so you can compare with ol’ BTD1 above:

What’s new? Bloons TD 5 is launching with 16 towers each with 8 upgrades. The upgrade path splits at level 3, so there are 128 towers if you look at it. Of the new towers aside from all the seriously awesome new upgrades, there are two completely new towers, the Sniper Monkey and the Ninja Monkey. Sniper is awesome at preventing leaks early on and his later upgrades allow him to dominate bigger bloons solo. The Ninja Monkey brings a clever and fast firing ally to the table in the beginning stages. He can see Camo Bloons off the bat and once he’s mastered “Bloonjitsu” his quintuple shot is a sight to behold.

Activated abilities is also something new we’ve brought in. Each tower on one of it’s level 4 upgrades has an activated ability. Some of these are very powerful against a single opponent (ie a MOAB), while others like the Ice Tower’s “Absolute Zero, affect the entire screen.

The monkeys also brought in some friends this time in the form of “Special Agents”. These guys can be hired with “Monkey Money” which is earned through in-game achievements such as completing a track. Special Agents like the “Angry Squirrel” can be placed in game to give you a big leg up and allow you to save for more pricey towers off the bat.

How much Awesome can you handle?

Lastly, I want to say a special thanks to all the people involved in the development of the game.

For a disclaimer I should add that everyone on this list probably did more than I give credit for.

Josh Catt – Josh is the programming lead for BTD5. Thanks to him for pulling this together through scope creep, deadlines and the sheer enormity of pulling this together.
Scott Walker – Scott is our super awesome executive producer without whos organisational brilliance we’d all be in a crying heap. Scott steered when we needed it, chipped in everywhere and played a pivotal role in hauling this sucker home in time for the holidays.
Chad Edwards – Chad was our extra 0.5 of a developer when we really needed it. Bloons TD 5 was a big job for one developer so Chad suffered through shifting sands and project hopping to help pull things together.
Tamihana Greaves – Artist. Tamihana had the unenviable task of tackling the new tower art and he really nailed it I reckon. Such an iconic IP needs to evolve with a lot of sensitivity to its history and the end result is much more character while being undeniably BTD.
Warwick Urquhart – Artist – Warwick brought a new life to the tracks and pulled together the all important and awesome intro animation.
Derek Wu – Artist, UI and sound design.
Jonathan Hopcroft – Ninja Kiwi login programmer
Lee Grey – Sound design
Tosh Baird – Ninja Kiwi login database design and virtual currency system lead developer
Curtis Keeble – Artist – had the tricky task of doing all the things no one really wanted to do, like 140+ upgrade icons and ability buttons.
Phil Dron – Art and UI support, Phil has a great knack of doing cool UI but also great special effects enhancements, we used these a lot for the towers super abilities.
Tim Haywood – Outsourced composer – use him in your game if you want more awesome – here.
Stephen Harris – My awesome brother and really the genius, often annoyingly inflexible, wizard behind BTD. The first 4 versions and the legacy wouldn’t exist without his game design awesome.
Chris Harris – Just me.

So, if you’re still reading this far, I release you. Go play Bloons TD 5 now and enjoy.

Cheers

Chris
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We like great tower defense whether we make it or not, so when we had a chance to work with Iriysoft to make the definitive version of Cursed Treasure for iPad, we were happy to do it. We’ve been working with them for several months and now Cursed Treasure iPad is now available on the App Store!

For anyone who’s played the awesome flash original and expansion, the iPad is chockoblock with the towers, enemy heroes, upgrades, and skills that you love, but there’s heaps of new stuff to check out, too. Completely revised HD graphics, all 30 levels rebalanced and worked into the Skills progression, new premium items, 24 Game Center achievements, and brand new iPad-exclusive skills.

The iPad version is the best way to play Cursed Treasure – go download it here!

For anyone who hasn’t played Cursed Treasure flash – you interested in playing it on ninjakiwi.com?

Ready for winter snow holidays? Ready to carve some fresh powder and catch some air? Live nowhere near snow or can’t afford all the crap you have to buy to go snowboarding? Well the best answer to all those questions is right here: Extreme Tilt Snowboarding for iPhone and iPod Touch!

This is snowboarding Ninja Kiwi style, so it’s all about awesome core mechanics and a sweet upgrade tree. That and the ability to attach NASA-grade booster rockets to your snowboard, since when most people say “extreme” they don’t really take it far enough.

The first thing you learn in the game is a major innovation on all of the jump distance games out there, and something we wanted to make even better from our experience with Destructo-Truck. In Extreme Tilt, you control the mountain slope with the tilt of your device, so you get to create your slopes and jumps on the fly, giving you total control over how much speed you want and how many jumps you want to try to get in. Tilt down to create a steep slope and build speed. Flick the device up briefly to create a quick rise that will be your jump, and then tilt down again so that the mountain slopes away and gives you maximum air time. Getting good at this can really help you boost your air time, which is key for pulling off tricks.

And once you’re airborne, pulling off tricks and trick combos are what it’s all about! There are 16 sweet tricks to pull off with simple touch gestures, and you can string them together to create combos that earn you even more points. Tricks range from simple, fast board grabs to longer tricks like helicopter and finally epic tricks like quad flips that take a long time to pull off but score massive points. It’s up to you to see how fast the ground is coming up and know what trick you can fit in and still land it. When you string together the right sequence of tricks, you unlock a hidden trick combo, which then shows up in your inventory of tricks so you can remember how to pull it off, and each time you do you get a seriously extreme score boost. Repeating the same tricks is a quick study in diminishing rewards, so the best runs have you stringing together all of the tricks that you know. Your rewards are more points, bonus time for a longer run, and in-game Cash to spend on all things extreme.

Spend that Cash on 16 progressively more awesomer snowboards and 10 progressively more ridiculous rocket boosters. There are some tricks that can only be pulled off while under rocket power, and the extreme air time that you get from a great board and booster combo is essential to pulling off some of the most advanced combos. It’s a grind model, and we’re not ashamed at all, since this is like a sweet board grind down that long railing in the center steps of your school on the first day of winter vacation into a sauna of hot chocolate populated by the individuals you would most like to be there lounging in eager anticipation of your epic arrival. Seriously. And along the way you earn high scores and 18 Game Center achievements.

So unless you’re going to comment back with some outlandishly constructed sentences of your own, go get Extreme Tilt from the App Store for a mere US$0.99 and shred the tilt-generated slopes of awesomeness!

So obviously we’re still working away on it. But just ‘cos I like torturing you all, here’s gameplay from what looks like a very nearly finished game right?

Enjoy! And if you haven’t already check out www.btd5.com for more stuff including some pretty sweet wallpapers

While you wait for the final game to come out, check out our BTD5 teaser site, containing trailer video, wallpapers, screenshots and other goodies.

Also, if you sign up for a free Ninja Kiwi account, you will be one of the first people to play BTD5 when it comes out later this month – getting early access to the game! Not only that but wll give you some NK Coins so you can try out some of the awesome new BTD5 premium stuff.

Some of you will have noticed that the chatter has picked up a little on the Bloons TD 5 side of things recently. My previous post uncovered a plot by the Monkey Intelligence Bureau to reveal information about what is probably our most highly anticipated game ever.

Now, we thought it’d be fun to test you all with a new game called “Who wants to be a Bloonionaire“. This is in the format of a popular game show and you’ll be quizzed over your Bloons TD knowledge so brush up on your BTD history, beat the game and you’ll get a special treat at the end

Play Who wants to be a Bloonionaire? now!

Besides BTD5 and a bunch of other cool new games, we’ve also been hard at work at a NK Login and Rewards system, and now we need your help to test it out!

We’ll post more later about the full features of the NK Login, but the goal is to make every interaction that you have with Ninja Kiwi more rewarding. Whether it’s playing games, participating in forums and community, buying premium items, getting top leaderboard scores, or taking part in special events, you’ll earn achievements as you might expect to, but you’ll also earn special NK points called “Awesome” (of course). In the near future, Awesome will be the key to new NK avatars, reserved veteran member titles, and even custom game content.

But right now we need your help testing the system, which is currently up and running in Battle Blocks. And here’s the BTD5 update – we’re getting close to finishing this massive, epic, work of love done, but we need to stress test the NK Login & Rewards to make sure it’s ready for BTD5. You get the picture – by helping us test the NK Login & Rewards, you’re helping us get that much closer to releasing BTD5! You’ll also get first look at a color image of one of the new towers in BTD5 – it’ll show up as your avatar.

All you need to do is go to Battle Blocks, and click “Register” in the NK module that appears in the upper left of the flash window to supply your NK handle and preferred email address. You’ll need to verify the account through an email that comes to the specified address, and then Login and play. Make it through at least Wave 10 to unlock the first achievement and earn some Awesome.

Send us bugs and feedback to support at ninjakiwi dot com, or go to the forum here and post bugs, questions, and comments.

We’re always looking for ways to make Ninja Kiwi more awesomer, and we sincerely appreciate your support and honest feedback in helping us live up to that tagline.