Messages

1

AI War / Re: Embryonic online galaxy viewer

« on: June 09, 2013, 12:44:46 AM »

As a side note, this does brings to mind a bit of an interesting thought for a hypothetical far off stretch-goal.

What if there could eventually be some mechanics that used the "actual" distances between planets rather than the wormhole network?
For example, perhaps there could be devices that an area affect that also have an affect other systems in close proximity to the one they are placed in, long range weapon emplacements that could "shoot" from one planet to another if they are within range, and/or there could be special high-cost and difficult to acquire transports that can warp through the space between planets directly without wormhole. Perhaps there could even be high-cost and difficult to acquire build-able gates that, rather than being instant transport from factories like the current gates, could act like full wormholes between planets and the cost or difficulty of construction be determined by the "actual" distance between them (think "Phase Stabilizers" in SoaSE).

Right now for most intents and purposes the wormholes themselves determine that "distance" between one planet and another regardless of a planet's position on the map. However, if there were methods of transport or effects that could occasionally bypass the wormhole network under certain conditions, then it would almost be like having two different maps simultaneously on top of each other. Some tactics or methods would use "real space" distances and some tactics would use "wormhole network" distances. Perhaps there could be two different versions of the map for players to use, the current "real space" map and an untangled "wormhole network" map.


It might be very difficult to do and/or involve a lot of weird work-arounds and/or "trickery" given how the game works currently, not to mention the possible consequences of making the game even more complex than it already is.
Still, such a thing might be something to consider for an "AI War 9.xxx" or whenever further down the road.

2

Skyward Collapse / Re: What is the goal of this game?

« on: May 28, 2013, 02:06:28 PM »

You're going to be building a lot of towns and a lot of them are going to get destroyed. In fact I would say ideally most of what you build is going to eventually get destroyed. (hopefully not before you can compensate appropriately of course)

In order to get points you want to allow as much controlled destruction as possible, by that I mean you want them to kill as many of of each others units and as many of each others buildings as you can while keeping at a level where they can still rebuild, expand, and produce units fast enough that it won't wipe each other out.

Making defenseless towns is part of that, but you don't always want your towns to be completely defenseless. You'll want to make sure that they aren't being destroyed so fast that it outpaces construction and you want to make sure you can compensate for lost resources.

You'll also want towns to be able to put out enough units and have enough defenses to allow you to use mythological and god tokens without tipping the balance too much, and some of those are worth points when used. Putting down mythological and god tokens before your towns and units can compensate for them is a common way to lose games early.
The stronger your towns and units are, the more abuse your setup can tolerate from mythological and god tokens without tipping over, and being able to use those is another major source of points.

3

Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse 1.004 "Rise of the Valkyrie" Released!

« on: May 27, 2013, 12:31:12 PM »

Is there a way to detect if the path to the other town is less than 2 tiles wide?
If there was a way to do that then maybe the units should eventually just pick a lake or mountain then bridge over or build a path through it if the path is too constricted.

Alternatively, and probably more simply, you could make any tile that isn't a flat tile cost a certain amount of score. Maybe placing a mountain can be -300 points while a lake can be -200 points for example.

4

Skyward Collapse / Re: Extremely-detailed wall-o-text first impressions by a long time Arcen player

« on: May 24, 2013, 09:11:02 PM »

You guys too?

Latest public service announcement from the Master: "Labyrinth Token Considered Harmful" 

5

Skyward Collapse / Re: Extremely-detailed wall-o-text first impressions by a long time Arcen player

« on: May 24, 2013, 02:30:14 PM »

Ah, indeed that may be the problem! 

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Extremely-detailed wall-o-text first impressions by a long time Arcen player

« on: May 24, 2013, 02:16:34 PM »

Too many minotaurs!

Seriously, I think I've lost 3 games early due to unfortunate misuse of Labyrinth. 

7

Skyward Collapse / Re: Best description of the game ever. :P

« on: May 24, 2013, 02:15:22 AM »

While on the topic of one line descriptions, "Have a plan to kill everyone you create".   

That's good advice!

Indeed it is, as there are some possible adverse consequences for not having such a plan.

For example, you might just accidentally play Yggdrasil while Labyrinth is still in effect out of carelessness:
http://i.imgur.com/JwBI46W.jpg
Aw ****, oh ****, what the **** have I done?! 

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Best description of the game ever. :P

« on: May 23, 2013, 03:04:19 PM »

While on the topic of one line descriptions, "Have a plan to kill everyone you create".   

9

Skyward Collapse / Re: Depth of this game?

« on: May 18, 2013, 01:57:46 PM »

There again, that just doesn't really mean anything to me if it's not explained to me in great depth.  If I am a new player and a game tells me "Complacency: X" or "Unity: X" I'm going to not pay much attention to those numbers because they sound like a sideshow.  Versus "Unrest" or "Rage" or something more obviously negative gets my attention immediately.  I'm not saying Unrest is the only word I'll use, but nothing else has yet really been close to being better in my opinion.

I bet folks would have argued about AI Progress, too.

Very true. It's weird trying to make people notice those numbers initially.

10

Skyward Collapse / Re: Depth of this game?

« on: May 18, 2013, 01:52:39 PM »

What about calling it "Unity" instead of "Hatred" or something like that.

The idea could be that if the people aren't united in building a war machine to go against a foe (the other guys) they cause "Unrest".

11

Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.815 (Alpha Round 2 Starts Now!)

« on: May 15, 2013, 10:54:41 PM »

Well, I just had my first mishap with a Woe, though I suppose playing on the highest medium with the fewest turns between woes them was really asking for it.

I got "Edge of Civilization" and lost a town on both sides.

Unfortunately, on the Norse side the only "town" that survived was a town center with NOTHING AROUND IT!!! 

There were bandits and the Norse were about to get killed off due to being just one building and "Fury of the Gods" was up next. I had Skadi on the Norse side so I did the only thing I could think of at the time to salvage the situation:
http://i.imgur.com/a5hDb7h.jpg

"NONE SHALL PASS!!!"

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Rock Paper Collapse

« on: May 14, 2013, 04:35:18 PM »

To give my take on this I'll have to play the part of the a**hole again. (oh boy, I'm gonna regret this)

AVWW 1+2 and SH were not very well received at all on RPS, IndieGame, and some similar sites, and people there did not like how they looked nor how they played. The only game that was both well received and well known there is AI War (Tidalis barely exists for this purpose).

AVWW 2 and SH really made this worse. The former is seen as an attempt to correct it's predecessor that also failed again, and the latter seems like a cheap GameMaker game (whether it is or not doesn't matter here, people see it that way) that isn't well reviewed enough to be worth checking out.
Regardless of what happens internally or community-wise, from an outsider's perspective that looks very bad.

On top of that Arcen has a taste in aesthetics that, while not a bad thing in itself, does not conform to what is generally accepted as good compared to similar examples.
Unfortunately for that the majority matters in this case, and since the majority thinks it looks bad then it is bad for most intents and purposes regardless of the intentions behind it.


With the above perspective in mind, it's easy to see why RPS, IndieGames, and similar sites are not going to be very friendly, and that skepticism and even dislike are to be expected.
With the exception of AI War, Arcen does not have a positive reputation there anymore.


Anyway, that's more than enough of a**hole mode, time for more "Bang! You live here now and you worship this guy!".

13

Skyward Collapse / Re: Rock Paper Collapse

« on: May 14, 2013, 02:52:17 PM »

However, I do think a good rule to follow is that if you're going to have weak graphics, don't use 3D.

It depends. 2D and 3D have different criteria for what qualifies as "ugly".

In 2D you're not going to get bitten for lack of detail as much, but you can get bitten for style. If you're going to have more detail in 2D there are more annoying "unsaid rules" regarding what you should and shouldn't do and that's why most alternative 2D styles in games tend to be low detail.
In 2D you can often be criticized for being "ugly" and not know exactly what you are doing wrong. A lot of the notions regarding what is "good" aesthetically in 2D are rather entrenched and finicky, and aren't always apparent until you've already stumbled head-first into them.

I find 3D is actually more forgiving in that specific regard. Yes there's a lot that can go wrong with 3D, but usually in 3D you're more likely know what you're doing "wrong" and where you need to go to fix it (relatively speaking, there's a lot of vagueness in that but not as bad as 2D).

To me it's like trying to choose between the guy who doesn't ask for much but can be a very picky and a lying bastard at times vs. the guy who asks for a lot and is hard to please but isn't quite as picky and stays pretty honest.
Both don't sound good so it's up to you to choose who looks like the lesser evil.

14

Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Steam

« on: May 10, 2013, 09:19:17 PM »

I'm pretty sure it'll be available via the "usual channels".

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Q&A For Skyward Collapse (Plus New Screenshots!)

« on: May 10, 2013, 10:20:03 AM »

I'm not sure if you've noticed this already, but someone commenting on the moddb article for this Q&A has illustrated why a lot of people are going to hate with the graphics regardless the detail and work put into them.

http://www.moddb.com/news/qa-for-skyward-collapse-plus-new-screenshots

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21309241/skywardperspective.jpg

This illustrates how, as I've mentioned before, the building perspectives do not line up.
It's a tiny thing, but that's all it takes for it to look wrong and of poor quality. Many games with equivalent or lower art budgets and/or less detail will look "better" than Skyward Collapse because they either don't have these issues or are too low detail for it to matter. Unfortunately human brains really don't like this sort of inconsistency, as small as it is.

Most people are going to look at the game and feel that something is horribly wrong, even if they don't consciously know what it is right away.

It's finicky and extremely annoying, but that's how it works.


There's probably not much that can be done about it this late in the game, but it's probably helpful to know for later.
At the very least it's good to know where the complaints will be coming from.