Topics

1

Off Topic / As the Village Turns

« on: May 08, 2012, 01:10:08 PM »

http://www.digitaldreamsgames.com/portfolio/as-the-village-turns/

Very unique browser game worth having a go at.

Set in a small romanian village, you play as Mihail. A sickly young man who can't stay out in the sun too long because of an illness. (you can see where this is going) The game revolves around spending your time wisely and talking to people in town. Each of the villagers will have a story to tell. Then when night falls you have a choice that will have major effects on the village.

It's supposed to contain over 1400 lines of unique dialogue too.

2

Off Topic / Playblink

« on: May 07, 2012, 03:55:35 PM »

http://playblink.com/

Anyone else a member on this site? You can enter in special giveaways for steam games. (Some of them are skill based where you play a mini game and whoever gets the highest score wins the steam game, others are completely random and then the others are a mixture of skill/random.)

It's invitation only at the moment and I gave my invite away already (to somebody who seems to have messed it up since nobody is showing as my referral) but I believe we get a new invite every 3 days.

I like it so far although I have only entered 7 so far with no luck. (although I only 3 have finished)

3

Off Topic / Kickstarter Projects

« on: April 19, 2012, 05:40:57 PM »

This thread is for talking about various notable kickstarter projects you've come across that you think deserve some attention.

Has anyone else seen this project yet?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343838885/nekro

A top down randomly generated game in the same vein as games such as Dungeon Keeper and Diablo. Summon various monstrosities such as Punge to do your bidding. Wreck havoc, maim innocents that kind of thing.

I haven't funded on kickstarter before (although I joined around the time DFA was kicking up a fuss) but I'm feeling very interested in this game.....not to mention it feels like it needs more help. I hope RPS will post a news article about Nekro.

It has 14 days left, totalbiscuit posted a video about it and it got a huge surge of funders. It's still in an awkward place though....I'm holding out hope that it'll make it. It's almost at 40k now.

4

Game Development / Ramblings related to Games Development

« on: April 04, 2012, 05:25:21 PM »

I feel like I should have asked these question a long long time ago. I know also this post might go a little off topic (and a bit wishy washy) but I really want to ask people who are games developers themselves.

Is it perfectly viable for somebody studying Software Development in college to eventually go into the games industry?

I'm studying Software Development (I'm actually in my third year) and although I do enjoy what I'm doing sometimes I feel very disinterested with the thought of eventually making software for insurance companies or claims companies. It just doesn't feel like me.

There are options to move over to a specified Games Development course. I haven't though partially for reasons I'd rather not discuss and partially because I was once told by a Games developer in secondary school (they had a bunch of career people come in you could talk to) that it would be a good idea to start with Software Development and eventually branch out once you get a "safety net". (Can't remember exactly how he put it) He wasn't particularly nice if I remember right, about games development he was a bit like "Abandon all hope ye who enter here".

I had actually intended to go for the Games Development course but couldn't because my Mathematics grade wasn't high enough.

It does often feel like all software/games developers were playing with motherboards as soon as they came out of the womb. It wasn't like that for me, through childhood/teenage years I was pretty happy but I don't think I ever really understood passion or a desire for much of anything except reading books or playing video games.

A few follow up questions I wanted to ask...

How do you formulate your ideas? Do they just pop up out of the blue and you start writing/typing down random bits of info and start sticking them together (and talk them through with your co-developers) or do you sit down with your co-developers for brain storming sessions. How do you know when your idea is a good one? How do you know when an idea is just better off dropped because it's going nowhere?

How do you decide what tools and development environments you will use? I'm working on a project in college with someone at the moment and this was something we really struggled with. (and arguably are still struggling with somewhat) The visual and idea research we did really well (according to our supervisor) but then when asked about tools, languages, IDEs it all became very vague and we had trouble deciding on much of anything aside from really basic things.

How did you get together with whoever you're working with now. How do you make contacts? (another person, a team etc) Were you hired by the group/company or did you meet someone by chance or did you email some guy and say "hey let's make a game!" Did you show them a 100 page document detailing your ideas and why you think you should join forces and make epic games. Did you lock them in your basement? (ok not that last one)

I think I just want to hear thoughts on these questions, because they're not really that clear to me.

5

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Dev thoughts on gog.com?

« on: March 27, 2012, 12:16:49 PM »

With the relaunch today of gog.com. The site will be accepting newer games on to their service.

http://www.gog.com/

I read somewhere that in terms of new games they'll be focusing on games released in the last 1-3 years. So it would probably mean more for Ai War and Tidalis than it does for AVWW.

I'm wondering what the devs think of the strict no DRM policy GOG has and if you would consider eventually bringing AVWW (Ai War & Tidalis also) to the service.

(I'm not entirely sure how games make it on to the gog service or how easy it is....I suppose there isn't much of a precedent since before they would for the most part only accept old games.)

6

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / What do ice pirates look like? (and other details)

« on: February 18, 2012, 07:06:58 AM »

I'm curious to learn more about these ice pirates that fly around the continent bombarding us with missiles.

Like what do they look like? Are they human or some other creature? Are they all evil? Will it be possible to even ally with them instead of destroying them? Will it be possible to board Ice Pirate ships in the future? What is their motivation? Do they just hate living things or something? Do they work for the overlords?

There's a lot of mystery surrounding them.

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Will there be any reason to go back to old rescued continents?

« on: January 21, 2012, 07:01:48 AM »

I'm just wondering what the story is with continents in this regard. Honestly I haven't played much of AVWW recently (just enough to check out the new enemies not so much completing missions) but I'm wondering if old continents will have any relevance in the future.

I saw it mentioned in another thread that you can't just start new worlds for each continent because then you'll never reach continents with new region types.....but I'm thinking more along the lines of what old continents themselves will really offer once you've saved them from destruction.

It would seem pretty boring to have a bunch of continents sitting pretty and not have anything to do in them. (and by things to do I don't really mean missions, you can do missions on any continent) At the same time if you've rescued a continent from destruction there shouldn't be anything that happens that's so bad that it'll put the whole continent in jeopardy again. Which would be a bit lame having to constantly go back to old continents to save them from new threats. (It would put actual progress on the back burner)

I was thinking if you save a continent maybe there would be the chance for new settlements (perhaps 1 or 2 new settlements...so there's a cap of about 3 settlements per continent) to develop as the continent becomes more prosperous. (Surely with no overlord it would become easier to grow since monsters would not be so strongly organised...even with the catastrophe) So when you've travelled far you might come back to you're earlier continents and see that you almost hardly recognise it anymore because it's been so long since you've visited it. On the other hand even though nothing so bad as complete destruction would happen to a saved continent it could still be in a poor situation and struggling to survive still. In terms of how it would work, I guess I'm thinking something along the lines of in the Animal Crossing Series your town develops even when you're not playing....so when you come back to an old continent the game calculates how long you've been away (perhaps only to a certain max amount of time so as not to be calculating really long periods of time) and applies changes to the continent based on that time and what was going on when you left.

Just an idea I thought would really add loads of depth to the game. I'm guessing this is the sort of thing you'd be looking towards for 1.0 and onwards though.

8

Off Topic / Evolve (Games Client)

« on: January 11, 2012, 01:24:57 PM »

Has anyone tried this out yet? It just launched open beta.

https://www.evolvehq.com/welcome

I'm installing it at the moment, supposedly it detects when you launch a game (that it supports) and adds it to your account with play times, achievements and the like. It makes me think of a broader steam (just without the digital distribution part) I think the in-game overlay allows for chat, video capture, picture capture too.

It supports Ai War, Tidalis and AVWW too.

I'll edit this post when I get a better feel for it.

9

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Things we never believed possible

« on: December 07, 2011, 05:41:38 PM »

I just saw the post about the devs finishing brainstorming so I just want to get this in while I still can. (It's not really a solid idea though, more like a hope for the eventual "feeling" of the game) I kept meaning to post this but kept putting it off.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/6310

I just completed a game called "The Longest Journey", and AVWW reminds me a lot of this game in many ways. Even though the genres are totally different there's still a character heading out into this completely foreign land not knowing what to expect. So bewildered and shaken at what has happened that their jaws drop when they see something they can't even begin to believe. Eventually after some time you begin to accept what has happened but the wonder and awe never really goes away. Some things just still beggars belief.

Strange creatures at every turn, some friendly and some not so friendly. Of course there are friendly humans in Arcadia but their way of life and understanding is so different to April's they might as well have come from a different time period either. Then you have other creatures too that at first you might believe to be nothing but wild savages or simpletons but then there turns out to be more to them than meets the eye. (They might be civil and have their own settlements, it might not fit in with what you're expectation of how a civilization works or what it looks like but it is still just as valid as your own)

That special moment when a strange foreign creature approaches your civilization and attempts to make peace with your kind. I think befriending non-humans in a way feels more special....like you're breaking boundaries.

I hope Arcen take full advantage of the setting they have with AVWW. Time & Space has been ripped apart and put back together right? This could allow "oddities" to slip through the cracks of reality.  (possibly from entirely different worlds) It's also a great opportunity to surprise the player with something unexpected, like giving them a left hook out of nowhere and see how they approach the issue. (by "left hook" I don't mean something that's downright unfair, just a little out of the blue....it can still be fun to expect the unexpected to a certain degree at least)

I hope many people here have played TLJ or this will be completely lost on them.

10

Off Topic / Hidden steam gems

« on: December 02, 2011, 01:53:58 PM »

With this giveaway that's happening over at steam right now I was wondering if anybody knew of some hidden gems over at steam that are hard to find?

My wishlist is alright at the moment, but I want to make it a little more varied just in case.

So do you have any steam games that aren't really out in the spotlight?

11

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Atrium: Double Star

« on: November 08, 2011, 01:06:17 PM »

This is intended to be a Large 10 door atrium. It's a 53X37 room.

I haven't been able to test the room, but I'm guessing from studying it closely that it will be fine.

12

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Boss Room: The Storeroom

« on: October 26, 2011, 12:25:04 PM »

This doesn't actually need to be a boss room (but it works very well as one), except it has tons of crates (being a storeroom and all) and I think it was mentioned that crates shouldn't be outside boss rooms that much.

This room is 26X71, I wanted to make something large but still a bit compact. So there's the best of both worlds in this one.

The boss will nearly always appear in the bottom half (there are a couple of areas above where amoebas and dragons might spawn...and even then the dragon will usually fall below through the bridge) so it means after the fight is done it's worth exploring the rest of the storeroom. I came across an exp container while I was testing it. (along with the usual items, monster spawners and doors work fine)

Plus there's at least one 8X8 surface in this one (it doesn't matter if that surface is crates does it?)

13

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Boss Room: Tower Link

« on: October 25, 2011, 05:11:53 AM »

I made this boss room using the new lava/water/sky tools. Although they really are only decorative in this map. I figure this map is like if you had two towers and this could be a small room connecting the two, so the sky is visible above and below. (while the middle area is connected to the building.

It's a small 21 X 43 map.

I've tested all three current bosses with the map and they all work fine. Even the large skelebot has just enough room to move about and can still be a threat. (you'd probably be fighting it from above but it can still shoot up at you) There's enough space to hide from attacks too.
 
Hope this one is ok? It might be pushing things a little in terms of size. I feel it works well though.

14

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Boss Room: Hourglass Temple

« on: October 18, 2011, 03:02:21 PM »

I was working on a boss room last night, however it was a bit of a mess. I made a new one tonight and I'm happy with how it turned out. It's a fairly compact boss room: 41X37

It looks to be in the shape of an hourglass (or an overturned 8 maybe?) The rise in the bottom middle is supposed to be like the shrine where some ancient artifact would stand on. (I was intending to put step slopes along the top ceiling too but it only works for the floor it seems)

Hopefully it'll work for all the bosses, I tested it a few times with the amoeba and skelebot but not with the dragon. (It's not big so it'll probably be fine.)

15

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Caverns in the shape of things.

« on: October 05, 2011, 01:46:19 PM »

Have you come across any caverns where the map actually looks like something? Post your pictures here and tell us what they're meant to be. (Keeping in line with the forum rules too)





It's Ireland! Well sorta.

I'll keep an eye out for more.