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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: A Valley Without Wind's Switch To Side View -- The Big Picture
« on: June 20, 2011, 03:59:31 PM »
Wow, heh, I for one did not expect that!
I'll be honest and say my initial reaction was shock and dismay: I was worried that the change meant simplification and the loss of open world exploration. Basically I'd become rather attached to what I thought AVWW was going to be and this seemed not to be it.
Reading the blog and watching the vid though, most of my fears seem assuaged. I can see that the overarching themes and motives of the design are still in place and the game still has the same core values that first attracted me.
Not having played some of the older games people here are talking about (or Terraria) I'm still not sure exactly how exploration will play out in side on 2D; I'd been hoping for something with a real roguelike feeling to the exploration and discovery part of the gameplay, and inevitably some of how I imagined that might play will be lost (if it was ever there) in the perspective switch (possibly to be replaced by something better of course)!
However, what I can take from what Chris and Keith are saying is that the change really 'feels' right and makes things click into place, and I think that with as strong a vision for the overall objectives of the game design as they have then this feeling should be trusted!
Visually the jump in quality is absolutely stunning, and this is from someone who didn't have a big problem with the top down perspective at all. It seems to be that some aspects like the jump animation or the slowness of animation/movement in general may need tweaking, but this is in the detail, and overall it simply looks great now.
Much of this I'm sure will be answered in the forthcoming second post, but the perspective switch throws up a few questions:
- How does this affect multiplayer? Still in I hope?
- How does this affect darkness and nighttime? Obviously we can see a bit of this in the vid but I'd be interested to hear it explained in detail
- How does this affect the size of regions? And the map? And do you still get dumped mid region by windstorms?
Finally, just out of interest/curiosity, was it not insanely hard to throw away so much hard work on the top down version to make the switch? Clearly this wasn't anything close to a from-scratch redesign and I know that game design is about iteration and experimentation and things always get thrown out, but given the finite time, budget and manpower available, how tough was it to chuck away all the work on the top down visual engine, the lighting, the region and interior generation not to mention so much of the art that must have gone with the switch? Feel free not to answer!
Thanks as always for sharing
I'll be honest and say my initial reaction was shock and dismay: I was worried that the change meant simplification and the loss of open world exploration. Basically I'd become rather attached to what I thought AVWW was going to be and this seemed not to be it.
Reading the blog and watching the vid though, most of my fears seem assuaged. I can see that the overarching themes and motives of the design are still in place and the game still has the same core values that first attracted me.
Not having played some of the older games people here are talking about (or Terraria) I'm still not sure exactly how exploration will play out in side on 2D; I'd been hoping for something with a real roguelike feeling to the exploration and discovery part of the gameplay, and inevitably some of how I imagined that might play will be lost (if it was ever there) in the perspective switch (possibly to be replaced by something better of course)!
However, what I can take from what Chris and Keith are saying is that the change really 'feels' right and makes things click into place, and I think that with as strong a vision for the overall objectives of the game design as they have then this feeling should be trusted!
Visually the jump in quality is absolutely stunning, and this is from someone who didn't have a big problem with the top down perspective at all. It seems to be that some aspects like the jump animation or the slowness of animation/movement in general may need tweaking, but this is in the detail, and overall it simply looks great now.
Much of this I'm sure will be answered in the forthcoming second post, but the perspective switch throws up a few questions:
- How does this affect multiplayer? Still in I hope?
- How does this affect darkness and nighttime? Obviously we can see a bit of this in the vid but I'd be interested to hear it explained in detail
- How does this affect the size of regions? And the map? And do you still get dumped mid region by windstorms?
Finally, just out of interest/curiosity, was it not insanely hard to throw away so much hard work on the top down version to make the switch? Clearly this wasn't anything close to a from-scratch redesign and I know that game design is about iteration and experimentation and things always get thrown out, but given the finite time, budget and manpower available, how tough was it to chuck away all the work on the top down visual engine, the lighting, the region and interior generation not to mention so much of the art that must have gone with the switch? Feel free not to answer!
Thanks as always for sharing
