RatureA tower defense in ballpoint pen
It all started with a silly question: what if the towers were drawn? Two evenings later, there was a game, a campaign and a two-player mode.
It all started with a question: what if, in a tower defense game, you drew your towers instead of buying them?
On 24 October, the first draft fit on a notebook page: letters marching towards a heart, and a blue ballpoint pen to stop them. That same evening, the game had drawn towers, specialisations, bosses and an automatic player to check that everything could be won.
On the 25th, the rest:
- Two players: a room with a 4-letter code, and you see the other person’s pen live.
- A freehand interface: boxes slightly askew, lines gone over twice, dividers that are never straight. Like a real exercise book.
- Bille, a little heroine you slide across the page with your finger to block the way.
- The iPhone Duo: closed, the tools under your thumb; open, the notebook across two pages.
- English: 684 strings translated, and a test that checks none are missing.
What I love about Rature is that the enemies are mistakes: accents, semicolons, quotation marks. And you cross them out.