Made in 2011 on my second trip to Sweden for the game jam No More Sweden, I had the chance to collaborate with my friend Angelo Yazar. At the time, Angelo was using the Corona framework, so I went on to just do the graphics for this one. I had a lot of fun!

The setup for the game requires to put the iPad on a table and have the two players play the game facing against each other, one on each half of the screen. I was always fascinated by this idea of having two players share one touch device, since touches are “anonymous” and can’t be connected to one of them, which is open to cheating. While my other game UFHO2 does the same but is turn-based, I wanted to do something real-time for this one. So confining each player on half a screen seemed like the obvious solution.

Premise

In Viva La Repubblica! we see Italy, for some very obscure reason, opposing the rest of the whole world in a war for resources. Russia, China, the US, Canada, the Middle East and even the rest of Europe. Don’t ask me why, probably something related to foreigners overcooking pasta, really, I don’t know.

Gameplay

The game played as a simple RTS, with the two players controlling their bases positioned at the poles of the earth. They would select one of the unit types on the UI, and then swipe from their pole towards the other side.

Provided they had the resources, the unit would be launched from the base in the direction chosen.

The game had two types of units:

• Satellites would be used for reconnaissance, and would be able to reveal underground gold. They would clash into other satellites – and I don’t remember if they could damage the opposing pole.
• Diggers would be able to pick up gold, whether it was previously revealed by a satellite or not, and also damage the opponent’s base.

That’s it. Being a game jam, the game had very simple mechanics, but I’m really happy with the graphics I managed to make 🙂