I hope all of you are looking forward to a relaxing holiday break with your families and spending some time in Dal Riata with your friends and clan mates.
It’s traditional at this time of year to reflect on what’s gone before and we’ve had a very busy year here at One Thumb Mobile.
We certainly didn’t rest on our laurels and the coding team went straight to work continuing the iOS port. In the meantime the designers unveiled the mid-year event the Shadows Over Beltane that saw players helping the Green Man turn back the frosts of winter and bring peace and growth to the world. This proved very popular and marked a new approach to events giving them a definite narrative flow which we continued throughout the year. The Samhain event, Web of Urchaid followed and we backed up the game releases with regular sales, giveaways and competitions. The response we received for all of our competitions was pretty phenomenal and it was great seeing you, the players engaging with the world of Dal Riata outside the confines of mobile devices and coming up with some fantastically creative entries. The Developer Diary also made an appearance this year to give you an insight into what happens behind the scenes at One Thumb and to keep you abreast of all the current news (as well as a few tasty hints of what’s coming up soon).
As the iOS version of the Destiny engine drew nearer we started beta programs; closed at first but then opening up using Apple’s new Testflight app built into iOS 8. Again the response was overwhelmingly positive and we can’t thank those participants enough for helping us make the new iOS version of Celtic Heroes what it is today. We are still continuing to work on the iOS build and you can expect an updated version early in the New Year that should address the connection issues some of you have been experiencing and some of the older devices should see an increase in stability.
We’ve strived to include bug-fixes for niggling issues in every release we do and all these fixes and other improvements we make in the iOS build will be carried over to the Android build as well.
As we drew closer to the end of the year we also released the Winter event, Into the Maelstrom which saw the first snows fall in Lir’s Reach for some time as well as providing some challenging and rewarding gameplay.
So what does the future bring? Early next year high-level players brave enough to face the challenge can test their skills in The Tower of Gelebron and its denizens including a battle against Gelebron himself. We’ve released a few images of the Tower and some of the inhabitants already but you can expect more in the New Year.
We’re also working on bringing you some completely new and unique features such as a fantastic Mounts system and the opportunity to learn and hone new Crafting skills. We’ll also keep up the regular events starting with the coming of Spring as well as giving you the chance to win some fantastic prizes in new competitions kicking off with your chance to design a fearsome winter foe. Check Facebook for details of this and to find out about the 12 Days of Yule offer that’s coming soon.
We have a lot more up our sleeves next year to carry on providing you with regular updates that improve and expand upon the gameplay in Dal Riata but in the meantime all of us here at One Thumb Mobile would like to thank you for your continued support of Celtic Heroes. We hope you have a wonderful holiday and we’ll see you soon in the wilds!
Heroes, we salute you!