Warbits

Warbits takes influence from the gameplay of the turn-based strategy video game series Advance Wars. While Wars has a modern military setting, Warbits pits two or more armies against each other in a stylized simulation of futuristic warfare. Each player controls a large army of soldiers and vehicles, with the objective usually being to wipe out the enemy's units or capture their headquarters. Neutral cities can be captured by soldiers to generate money, which can be spent on manufacturing new units at factories.

The most basic units are Infantry, with Light Infantry being fast and inexpensive, and Heavy Infantry being slower and more costly. The former is more useful for capturing buildings, while the latter is more effective against ground vehicles. Similarly, there are two types of armored vehicles, the lower-cost Light Mech and the more durable Heavy Mech. The Ranger unit, a sniper squad most effective on mountains, must wait a turn before attacking.

Warbits was developed by the two-man independent team of programmer Joseph Borghetti and artist Reilly Stroope, who worked remotely and never met in person. They characterized the project as a "dumb idea" due to the risk of launching a "niche strategy game" on a single platform, but believed it might target an under-served market. After being introduced to each other on a small community forum, they commenced development in 2012, seeking to make a mobile game.

The inspiration behind the game was that Advance Wars was not on a mobile platform. The developers assumed it would be finished in six months, but realized the large amount of depth and complexity in the Wars games would be more difficult to emulate than they believed. Keeping their day jobs, they developed the game as a hobby, spending the first two years learning how to develop a game from scratch, and the next two years completing the game. Much of the development time was spent simply learning how to program as opposed to creating the game itself.

Warbits was well-received by critics, gaining "universal acclaim" on Metacritic. Most of its reviews were from mobile gaming sites rather than more major outlets. Upon launch, the game was made the App Store's Editor's Choice for two weeks straight, attributed to launching during an Earth Day promotion that prevented larger developers from launching their apps. The game sold the majority of units within these two weeks, drastically decreasing afterwards.

By late 2016, it had made lifetime sales of USD $173,000, earning the developers USD $116,000. It sold over 52,000 copies, and TouchArcade attributed its success due to the fact that it did not face any competition during its release timeframe.