Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

If you happen not to know (and most gamers don’t, it would seem), League of Legends is an under the radar game developed by independent Riot Studios. A large portion of the team happened to have worked on the phenomenon known as DoTA, or Defense of the Ancients, likely the most well known and popular Warcraft 3 mod to ever exist.

League of Legends has been in development for quite some time and has been designed to rebuild DoTA from the ground up without the limitations of the Warcraft III engine. The game also offers many unique systems that add much needed depth to the game over DoTA, such as the Masteries System that appears to draw heavily from World of Warcraft’s Talent Trees:

There are many more customizations that add flavor to the gameplay, a large portion of them being bundled under the name of “Summoner System”. These features can range from selecting two unique spells chosen from a list you’ve earned, allowing your champion to be slightly different from another player’s character even if you’re playing the same champion, to adding runes to your Rune Book in order to customize your champion’s attributes. It’s all very polished and seemingly adds quite the bit of depth to the game.

Overall, the team seems to be doing an incredible job on the game despite the likelihood of League of Legends ending up as a sleeper hit for some time (DoTA was as well). Which is why I was surprised when Riot Studios announced that the game will be released completely free of charge, an unexpected bit of news that has caused quite the stir given that the dedicated and large fanbase of DoTA were eagerly waiting with $50 in hand.

That’s quite some greenbacks being missed out on. According to the team, they have decided that the best way to reach as much of the community as possible was to not place a price tag on the game. Instead, dedicated fans can “donate” to the game in the form of customizations purchased through “Riot Points” that can in turn be purchased with real cash.

So yes, that does mean the game will have a cash shop. However, according to Riot Studios it will only be for minor character customizations such as unique skins or effects and for what they call “boosts”. The boosts just make the process of reaching max summoner rank a little easier, which supposedly doesn’t take long to accomplish to begin with as it’s really designed as the learning curve for the game.

The team has sworn that they will not be charging for anything that affects competitive play and that it’s more than likely their best players won’t have payed a dime for the game. This design is by choice and the team hopes to instead earn money through “donations” and E-Sport events and tournaments.

Sounds promising, Riot Studios. I myself remember the days of DoTA and the unique form of player versus player action it brought with a mixture of glee and terror, but League of Legends seems to be a beast all of it’s own. I’ll be giving the game a look and a review whenever it’s released, which is currently projected to be sometime around September.

If you’re interested, give the game a look and sign up for the beta over at their official site.

And just for old time’s sake, I’ve included the infamous DoTA song below for your daily dose of amusement: