Wands

Announcing the end of Season 5

Announcing the end of Season 5 2343 1288 Cortopia

Wielder,

Season 5 ends on June 24th and we’ll announce the winners shortly thereafter.

For Season 5,  skilled wielders will be granted some very special rewards, namely:

  • The #1 ranked will get a completely unique title.
  • The top 10 will get their own unique title and the Invictus Wand unlocked.
  • The top 100 will also get their own title.

You can view the Invictus Wand below.

 

Wands Update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir Trailer

Wands Update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir Trailer 2048 1152 Cortopia

Check out our beautiful trailer of our upcoming update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir below.

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Introducing the new workshop

Introducing the new workshop 2560 1440

Introducing our brand new workshop

Our engineers, construction workers and wizards have been hard at work creating a brand new workshop.

We’ve basically rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up, making it more spacious, streamlining the functionality of the various stations, and adding a bunch of other improvements.

The new workshop is part of our 1.4 update which will be out this month.

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The Sanctum of Sahir

The Sanctum of Sahir 2560 1440 Cortopia

New Arena: The Sanctum of Sahir

A new arena has been discovered in the Beyond!

This map features 3 separate sections that the duel will progress through as a sandstorm and deadly poison sweep across the map.

The battle begins outside a grand temple and ends within the burial chamber of a long forgotten king.

The Sanctum of Sahir is part of our 1.4 update which will be out this month.

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A Tale of Two Wands Updates

A Tale of Two Wands Updates 2000 1011

Hello fans of Wands,

My name is Ryan Bednar and I recently joined the team at Cortopia as the Creative Director of the studio.

Now that I’ve had a chance to settle in, I wanted to share our roadmap for the next couple of Wands updates so that you can know what to look forward to!

But first, let’s start with some context.

We know that Wands is a great game with an exceptionally loyal and passionate player base. We see them every day on our Discord, around the internet, and in the game.

That said, we acknowledge that Wands has some room for improvement. Once players understand how to play the game, they often comment on the the game’s unique depth of gameplay – specifically for VR. But the learning curve is steep, and we currently drop you into the deep end pretty early on.

So our plan is the tackle these issues in two parts.

The first is Patch 1.4.0 which will involve us rebuilding the workshop, and all of its functionality, from the ground up; as well as adding a tutorial sequence to introduce new players to the very basics of the game.

The second, Patch 1.4.1, will cover everything else. Improvements to our control schemes, tighter gameplay feedback, and more ways to play the game will all be areas of focus for us.

While subject to change, our current plan is to launch 1.4.0 mid-June and 1.4.1 sometime early in the fall of 2018.

I hope that you’re as excited for these changes as we are – and we look forward to continuing to make Wands the best game it can be!

-Ryan

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Wands – Patch 1.3.9 Now Live

Wands – Patch 1.3.9 Now Live 1750 885 Cortopia

Fresh out the Wands factory, we’ve just released our new update 1.3.9. With this update there’s several performance improvements, balance changes and bug fixes.

Improvements

  • Improved network sync for Flaming Phoenix
  • Major performance improvements for spell casting

Game balancing

  • Reduced cast cost for Cerberus collars from 35 to 25 mana and reduced time from 10 to 8 seconds
  • Reduced cast cost for Skull Specter from 35 to 30

Bug fixes

  • Players can no longer get hit during teleportation
  • Dragon’s Breath can no longer deal damage through shields
  • Fixed bug where more than 2 twins could be active at the same time
  • Splash damage doesn’t pass through solid objects anymore
  • Elevator speed on Aspis Prison now the same throughout the match

Oculus

Improvements

  • Improvements made to swipe input to both the GearVR and Go remote

Daydream

Improvements

  • Improvements made to swipe input

Misc

  • Daydream: From now on players need to be signed in to Google Play Games to connect to Wands

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Wands with positional tracking now on Daydream’s Mirage

Wands with positional tracking now on Daydream’s Mirage 2560 1298 Cortopia

Wands is now available and can be enjoyed with 6dof on Google Daydream’s Lenovo Mirage Solo. Wands has true positional tracking available right now.

The world’s first standalone Daydream VR Headset. Experience immersive virtual reality without a separate PC or smartphone. Deploy Google’s powerful WorldSense technology to lean, dodge, duck, move, avoid obstacles, and move naturally in The Beyond.

 

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Wands, launch title on Oculus Go

Wands, launch title on Oculus Go 1920 1080 Cortopia

We’re super excited to share the news that Wands is now available on the brand new Oculus Go.

Easily enter the beyond in Wands with no PC or wires attached. Oculus Go is a standalone VR headset made to fit you. Designed with breathable fabrics, adjustable straps and Oculus best lenses yet.

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New Wands website

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We’re happy to announce our brand new Wands website.

Some of the improvements:

  • Vastly improved discovery across all devices; desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile. Basically you should now find what you’re looking for.
  • Improved visual experience overall, showcasing more of our beautiful game.
  • New section: Competitive. An area where we’ll add more info over time with the focus on the competitive aspects of Wands.
  • Improvements done to the forum.
  • New section: Wands Wiki. We’re super excited to share this with everyone. We now have a brand new Wiki for Wands and we look forward to adding a lot of stuff to it. Let us know if you want to contribute.

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CEO Spotlight with Andreas Skoglund

CEO Spotlight with Andreas Skoglund 4965 2685 mbpadmin

We’ve talked with our CEO, Andreas Skoglund to hear about his daily life as CEO, dreams and best practices.

Hi Andreas! Welcome and thanks for sitting down with us. Can you tell those unaware who you are and what you do?

Hi there. My name is Andreas Skoglund, I am a 36-year old nerd who lives in Stockholm, Sweden together with my wife and two daughters. At this particular point in time I am the CEO of Cortopia Studios. When I am not doing work, I tend to split my time between consumption of digital entertainment and spending time with my girls at home.

What is Cortopia?

Cortopia is a gaming studio within the VR sphere with ambitious plans to start doing very cool stuff in the near future.

How did you get into this position? What drove you to Cortopia?

It started with a wish to do something different and go to a more intimate setting. Before Cortopia I was working at DICE for 7 years where I very much enjoyed my time and I’m still today very much in love with the company and the people there. But I am a restless soul and came to a point where I felt I knew the reality of working for a big media company a little too well and wanted to focus my time in a creative setting where you can make a lot of impact.
I knew Ricky, the founder of Cortopia, since his time at DICE a couple of years ago. When he asked if I was interested in helping him direct the company as its new CEO, I felt it was a perfect fit for where I were mentally at the time and here I am today with a new set of wonderful colleagues and a whole new fresh industry to conquer.

 

What’s the most exciting thing about your job?

The single most exciting part is to be able to work with passionate and driven people. In a smaller company like Cortopia the success lies within how the people decide to engage in their work. I don’t see myself as a boss with all the answers, my primary role is to make sure everyone knows their purpose, share the vision of where we are going  and feel like they have a personal and professional journey to grow with. How well the company does is directly correlated to how engaged the people within it are.

 

Cortopia secured a rather significant funding at the end of 2017, 21,5m SEK to be exact. How was this experience like and what are the goals with this new influx of capital?

Working in the still very early industry of VR and AR comes with the reality that not many companies are able to fully drive the business on profit. So funding is a common form of securing continued results and innovation. For us, we were lucky to find investors that share our vision for the future and the industry and are willing to partake in our journey for the long run. As for goals, we want to build on the success of our first game Wands and widen our VR portfolio while also venturing into AR. We will do this by recruiting industry leading talent.

 

Nice! You mention Wands, Cortopia’s hero title. Can you give a brief introduction for anyone not aware of what this game is about?

Wands in its core is a competitive, player vs. player game set in the scene of magic duels in the 13th century of London. You take the role of a wielder and load up your wands with magical spells and challenge other players around the world to show who is best by climbing the leaderboards. It is a very beautiful and intense experience that has a big following of dedicated players. What is also very cool is that the game is available on the majority of the major VR platforms out there and everyone can play everyone.

 

Given Wands’ very competitive scene, are there any plans to expand into the eSports market?

I am personally a big fan of eSports and spend a lot of time on Twitch. So yes, we are keeping a close eye on opportunities in this area to see what the future might bring.

 

What about future games? Is this something Cortopia is looking into and if so, will it also be within the VR space?

I believe we both need and will grow by putting our creative hats on and work on some new and different types of games. We have an immense talent pool with itchy fingers. Along side of this we are still very much dedicated to Wands and will keep supporting the game for a long time to come.

 

Where is the AR and VR industry going in the next years and are these two subjects relatable?

I believe both VR and AR will continue to grow at a steep rate as the technology becomes more powerful and available to the general public. VR and AR are by definition two very separate experiences but as we move into the future I am sure that from a gadget-perspective they will merge into the same device and very much replace things like smartphones and TV screens.

 

Where do you see Cortopia in 5 years given your thoughts on AR and VR?

We are breaking new grounds in how entertainment is experienced on these platforms.

 

For anyone wanting to get into the gaming industry, what are your best tips?

Education is always good and will get you a long way, but I came into the industry with no formal education in the area or previous experience in the industry. Both looking at how I landed my first job in games and what I today look at when I hire people, it mostly comes down to a genuine love for games and the will to leave ego at the door and learn on the job. I will take true humble ambition with the mindset of doing what it takes over a proven track record any day of the week.

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