Messages

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.

« on: December 17, 2012, 01:13:47 PM »

Yeah, my gamepad sends its left/right "triggers" as some sort of weird +/- movement axis, so I can't bind them at all in many games. Eventually I set up my keyboard (for Valley2) with the skills lined up across a row of keys (in this case m , . / for my right hand) and other functions clustered around the wasd keys which I use to move. This has worked pretty well for me so far.

*

On another topic, I have to ask: Does anyone else feel that the movement in Valley2 is a little... Off? Or is this just me? I want to say it's a little too much floaty sensation while jumping, a little bit of sluggish sensation when moving from a stop, and a little bit of this feeling that when I jump I keep accelerating in the air long after I've left the ground.

OK, here, I'll back up. To be frank, I do not feel like the movement is "right", but I don't know why. You all surely know it, that hard to quantify feeling that "this platformer's movement is just tight and polished and *right*". I'm just not getting that sense here, but I can't tell if it's the actual movement code, or some weird sensation I'm getting because of how the camera sort of moves around of its own volition when you move, or.... I don't know, something else entirely, like me responding poorly to the scale of things on my tiny old 1024X768 monitor. I should really just buy a new one...

As a contrast, on a whim I downloaded the freeware version of Spelunky for the first time this weekend (late to the party as usual), and immediately playing that I was like "YES this movement is RIGHT". Valley 2 feels like it needs some polish to get to this point, but I'm having trouble identifying exactly what I think is off, or if I'm just making it all up.

Any feedback would be great, as this is probably the single biggest thing that stands between me and full enjoyment of the game.

EDIT: Seeing as this is a pretty serious criticism to make of the game, I am sensitive about posting it here in public while the game is still in private alpha - let me know if I should remove this post and just send it as feedback in an email. I post it here despite my concerns because I am interested what the opinion of the other testers is, and I'm hoping it's just something to do with the scale of my display.

For the record I don't recall having a similar impression of AVVW1. My memory is that I immediately felt quite comfortable and happy with the movement in that game.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.

« on: December 15, 2012, 12:14:24 AM »

I left a few comments over on RPS trying to correct some misunderstandings I found there, but to be frank I had to agree with one person that the art still looks rough in places (now that I go back and look, I worded that post horribly. Oh dear, I'll edit that). In doing so I also mentioned that the art is not necessarily final, and that I was under the impression this version still had placeholder art in places.

To be clear, my feeling is that the art looks solid as a whole, but there are a few assets that do not appear to be polished to the same level of the work as a whole, and while watching someone else play the game they do stand out a bit as such. I'm thinking of this one shack/house and a specific character run cycle which looks a bit wonky because the legs don't articulate at the knees quite right.

I don't want to analyze it too much more than that until I get my hands on the game in whatever state I finally play it. But I feel that these impressions are best raised now while there is still a chance to correct any issues that Arcen and Heavy Cat agree can be changed with minimal work.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind 2 - a full sequel free for existing customers - is coming.

« on: September 30, 2012, 05:28:23 PM »

I've been away for a while, and come back to this "wee" tidbit of news. Oh man, this is a lot to take in!

At a glance, it looks like whether this succeeds or not depends mostly on implementation and details - conceptually it sounds elegant, rich, and robust, but extremely dependent on refined mechanics and good balance. As such, I don't even feel like I can offer much feedback until I get my grubby paws on it.

What I can say is, A) I am extremely excited for this new direction; B) The art is looking quite nice so far; C) I think the choice to branch out development to preserve AVWW1 as a sandbox experience is perfect; D) I think this seems like the best direction for Arcen and you personally.

To expand on point D: I have immense faith that this is the sort of game you folks can really nail, given how good you are at creating interesting strategic choices within a procedural game. That is what I'm most excited about, I think - the new strategic game with its resource management hooked into but still distinct from the platforming action game.

I'm also excited to be done with RPG style grinding for a while and to get back to old school Metroidvanianing. Either way, long live AVWW1, and may AVWW2 be just as unique - if a little easier to wrangle on the design end!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: WIP Images From The A Valley Without Wind Art Revamp

« on: August 24, 2012, 12:51:54 AM »

These look really nice! I wasn't in need of converting since I've always preferred Heavy Cat's work, but I'm even more impressed by these than I thought I would be. And to the point, they feel like a really good match for AVWW to me. Full of personality and funky raw energy.

I will say they are still not as slick as some of the other studios - at least not yet - but that seems to be part of H's work process, and I respect them a lot for that. Having the discipline to start a little rough and let the work get refined over time isn't easy.

I can't wait until they get enough put together for us to see a final composite of a whole scene of finished assets - or better yet, some animated characters running around! Very exciting times!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Scope of work for the art rework project, if you're curious.

« on: August 10, 2012, 10:23:47 PM »

Exciting times indeed! I've just started a new AVWW game to test the 1.2 changes in a totally fresh world, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Helps that I've cranked the difficulty up as well - Arcen games are always best when they want to see you dead.

Can't wait to start seeing some of the new art animated and moving around. While I have a lot of confidence in Heavy Cat's talent and work ethic, I'm still having trouble imagining just how their work will look inside the game and moving around. Any chance we'll get to see run cycles or anything before they make it into the game?   

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: An Update On The "A Valley Without Wind" Art Rework Project

« on: August 02, 2012, 05:46:38 PM »

The importance of finishing is not to be underestimated. Like refactoring code or editing a piece of writing, it's those later steps to really clean things up that make or break a drawing or painting. Even as an artist, this is a fact that's hard to keep in perspective when you see a really impressive piece of work from someone else. It's easy to think it just sprang from their tablet/pencil/brush fully formed, when it probably started just as rough as any other sketch, but was refined over time...

Anyway, I don't mean to preach. Point is you can't really judge the finished work based on early sketches, which is part of what made comparing the different studios so hard. Heavy Cat did things a little different, and sent really loose concepts, which allowed them to be very agile in responding to feedback and tuning the style to match the project. The other studios did much more polished, impressive work, but that's because they (more or less) jumped straight into final art mode. It seems like they sort of specialized in one style, too, whereas HC tries to embrace a range of tones and styles.

My biggest concern remains HC's character art. Not because it isn't solid, but because it is so different from AVWW's current art, which I actually really like. I hope they can capture the sort of realistic, naturally proportioned simplicity of the pre-2.0 art... I'm quite confident, they seem to be very hard working and dedicated.

Looking through their portfolio, I think AVWW just needs backgrounds done by whoever did the series of fantasy landscapes. O.o Holy crap those are good.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Backer awards for AVWW art Kickstarter

« on: July 31, 2012, 03:34:13 PM »

Exclusive rewards (i.e. "the backer gets this item, no one else does") really doesn't work for a bunch of reasons; one is that the related logic and graphical assets have to be distributed to everyone anyway (for multiplayer to work) so what would be the point?

Don't ask me what the point is, I've never understood the appeal myself.

I just ran across the KS for Moon Intern (linked from RPS) for the first time today, and I think their KS tiers are very cool and well done. Might be worth taking a look at. In short, you can get your likeness/personality put into the game as an NPC, with the prestige of the NPC's job increasing to match the tier you are backing at.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Backer awards for AVWW art Kickstarter

« on: July 31, 2012, 12:01:13 PM »

Personally I really like the idea of the settlement having a memorial building with the names of some backers inside. You never even have to go in if you don't want to, and it could be integrated in the fluff really easily: "this memorial is dedicated to all those who sacrificed to build this settlement" yadda yadda. Maybe let people write their own epitaphs (within reason and subject to editing for tone) at higher support tiers.

Other than that, I would suggest some (in-game) vanity items for backers:

• Special heat and cold suits (higher tier, since they require animation)
• Special spell effects
• Special time period themed crate and box sprites
• Custom doodads for decorating your settlement (maybe have a tier that lets you help design them; at $100, you can design a doodad that the $25 backers get)
• Summon monster abilities with unique skins (i.e. summon rhino now has armor)
• the ability to find unique backer-only gifts for NPCs
• NPCs with tweaked sprites. I.e. your industrial age NPCs can spawn with a unique color scheme or can have a special top hat, or you have a chance of finding a stone age princess with a fancy headdress and royal jewels. Nothing that requires making totally new art, just tweaks here and there to give them unique flavor

Now, personally I am not crazy about the idea of unique things like this in game, because as I've said elsewhere, when I support a KS like this I want all the content to go to everyone; the last thing I want is to pay extra to have something that many players won't have. I would prefer the above rewards be offered to all players as stretch goals. But at this point I'm just trying to brainstorm and throw out all the purely aesthetic options I can think of.

I could also see offering the above items with specific KS reward tiers, with the clear understanding that they would later be offered to the community as a whole in DLC or a "sprite expansion pack". So basically they'd be timed exclusives for KS backers. I know it rubs some folks the wrong way when their unique rewards later become available to the unwashed masses, but it seems more charitable/fair to me. Sometimes people just don't have the money to back a KS during its 30 day run, and it's nice to give them access to things they might want to give you money for later.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

« on: July 31, 2012, 11:22:24 AM »

Do you mean the other way around? The second one looks super exaggerated to me (and looks totally off as a result).

Edit to fix bracket and to add: I'm not sure if I've ever posted this, but one of the things I think is really cool about AVWW is how I can play an awesome female character, and I do that exclusively. I'd be pretty disappointed if they got turned into fanservicey things like the second picture there.

In the first image, her head makes up like 1/5 her total height, making her proportions very childlike, which is what I was referring to. You are correct in that the second image is also quite exaggerated; I wasn't being specific enough.

AVWW's current character art features people with natural adult proportions, which I totally agree is a wonderful thing. I much prefer it to crazy fanservice women with giant bosoms. I just don't know if the proportions of the first image really match AVWW, since they are so youthful.

And to be extra clear, looking at something like Braid, obviously you can have these cute/youthful proportions and still have a serious, mature tone; I'm not saying they're bad or immature or less serious inherently. Just pointing out that AVWW's current character art focuses on naturally proportioned adults.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

« on: July 27, 2012, 01:58:56 PM »

Of those two styles, I think the second is definitely a better match for AVWW. Given the scale of the game and its general style, I don't think the level of exaggeration in the first image is necessary, or appropriate.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

« on: July 23, 2012, 05:00:50 PM »

The more I see H's stuff the more I like them. They have such a broad range of stylistic options at their disposal between their different artists, and I think they are all simple and clean enough to be easily understood in chaotic battles - all while finding a good balance between exaggerated fantasy and organic naturalism.

While G and K both produce some really slick work, I just don't feel they mesh as well with AVWW. I.e. the latest from K is very cool, especially the wasp, but I'm afraid the style isn't clear enough to function given how hectic combat can be. Maybe for the point and click adventure sequel?

While I think G's style could definitely work for AVWW, it feels less quirky and organic to me; more polished and plastic, especially the character and monster art. That is a good match for some games, but personally I think AVWW feels sort of meaty and funky and odd (in the best way), and I think H is the best match for that.

This is all just me rambling to try to offer useful feedback, I certainly don't intend to insult or demean the work of any of these studios. They all seem like talented, profession people who do good work.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

« on: July 23, 2012, 12:43:22 PM »

Been away a while traveling, but good to see new images (and lots of discussion) in this thread.

To make a brief - if belated - statement of support in light of the Steam sale situation: Arcen's work is far too amazing and you all are just too smart and hard-working for this to be anything more than a minor bump in the road. As a consumer, I feel like I've gotten far more support and responsiveness for AVWW than I ever would have expected (and certainly more than I've experienced with any other game), so if the company needs to focus on other things for a while, do so without any hesitation. My group of friends will probably be happy to see updates slow down, if anything; we all found it difficult to keep with with the rapid changes to the game.

It probably helps that I'm very impatient for an AI War expansion!

*

As for the art, I hate to say it but I feel like wheels are spinning until we see some characters in motion. I think the stuff we've seen is all high quality work, and give or take an issue here or there with tone or details, any of the studios could do work that would fit AVWW pretty well. In short, they are close enough together that the quality of animation - and how the art looks in motion - seems like it will trump anything we see in these concept pieces. I know that's not a very informative stance to take, but I just don't feel like I can say anything else about these samples other than "well I like X more than Y and Z, so  blah."

I still think H feels like the best fit for AVWW, even though the work from the other studios has more pop and flash. I think H captures the eclectic but naturalistic feeling of the game, whereas the other studios evoke a sort of comic book/cartoon world of 2D archetypes. That said, if I can speak frankly as someone who studied art at university, many of the samples from H do not impress me with their drawing/painting fundamentals. Now let me walk that back and make clear that I'm not saying they're bad artists - they are clearly talented, hard workers; I understand that a lot of game art programs these days focus on other areas, such as 3D work and the tech side of things, leaving people with limited time to practice drawing. But it makes me nervous about the quality of the finished work, and reinforces the feeling that I need to see some finished work in motion to offer a proper opinion.

It's just a really tough call to make. While I prefer H personally, I find myself second guessing that choice and trying to predict what "the market" will like based on some cliches and stereotypes about "the common PC platform gamer". Maybe a punchy, vibrant style like K/G's would sell better, even if it didn't fit the game perfectly? Maybe maybe maybe.

To anyone at Arcen: Are we likely to see any animated samples before a studio is chosen, or is that part of the process going to wait until one style has been settled on?

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW Post-Release 1.116 "Another Balance Pass" Released!

« on: July 09, 2012, 04:18:18 PM »

Thanks for the help with settler moods. I came here to grumble about how hard it is to get the mood up to the point where every task isn't a suicide mission, but I'll belay that until I can test more.

Otherwise things are looking good!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

« on: July 09, 2012, 04:08:27 PM »

Uh oh, as expected, choice of art overhaul direction looks to be a divisive topic! 

G's work is the most polished and finished looking at the moment, which I think a lot of people are consciously or subconsciously latching onto. It seems like it would be an OK match for the tone of AVWW, based on what we've seen here. It does feel a little bit conventional, which is troubling given that, to me, the tone of AVWW is more "idiosyncratic and sophisticated intelligence" rather than "your normal action game".

K's looks promising, though I worry that the style is a bit too exaggerated for the tone of the game. I worry it will overemphasize the SNES/Comic vibe. While AVWW clearly draws inspiration from SNES and 16 bit era games, I feel like it is still primarily a sophisticated, modern game made in the age of procedural generation and "naturalist" SF (the BSG decade, if you will). I think the art should reflect that.

H's work is clearly still rough, and as such I don't want to say much about it. If their sprite artist can make things look good in motion, then I think their style has great potential to capture the sophisticated, modern tone that I think best suits AVWW.  But the fact that the composite concept piece looks so disjointed is a little worrying to me. That said, I often see artists trained in 3D work doing concept stuff, and it shows - they are simply not specialists in drawing and color design. What really matters is what the sprite artist does with the concept pieces. EDIT: I adore their concept for the sniper balloon. The drawing is a bit crude, but it's super weird and cool as an idea. It's one of the reasons I'm so intent on waiting to see their finished work; if they can realize polished versions of that concept and the character art they've shown, I think they are by far the best match for AVWW's unique style.

Can anyone from Arcen clarify which of these studios is doing the sprites and which is doing the articulated mesh style? I assume at this point G and K are the sprite shops? If so, H's finished work could look very different indeed.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Thoughts on New Crafting/Spells

« on: July 03, 2012, 01:53:04 PM »

I don't feel like the new mechanics hurt splitting up as much as I feared. Spells are in great supply due to missions (too much so, really. What are we supposed to do with all of them?), guardian scrolls and buildings go into the central pool (don't they?), and if I'm really feeling like holding down spelunking and crafting for the whole team, I can do that and trade them the spells they want once I've crafted them. I'm OK with this.

I have two concerns right now:

Firstly, as I said, way too many spells in my inventory and nothing to do with them. Am I missing a "sell" option, or some way to disenchant them? Often there will be a mission type I enjoy that gives a spell I already have, so I feel like doing that mission is just a waste of time.

As an outgrowth of the above, I might have ball lightning and an uncommon orb, but I feel like there should be a way to put them together. I might not have the crafting mats to make an uncommon ball lightning, but I feel like running all over creation trying to find them is just an irritation when I already have 3 of them I'm currently not using.

I feel like a disenchant option wouldn't go amiss. Obviously you shouldn't get full resources back, but even one random component material might help alleviate the above frustration.

Just a thought. Strikes me that it might be too effective, and everyone would just grind missions to get spells to D/E rather than go exploring caves.

One thing I will say about the new system of resource gathering: It was not at all intuitive to us that resource nodes were dropping a separate item for each person in the chunk, and it took some time to figure this out. It also began to feel very frustrating that we all had to run to every corner of the room to each individually pick up the materials. Can't we like, put it in our bag and distribute them back at the settlement?