Arcen Games is excited to announce A Valley Without Wind, our upcoming co-op 2D sidescroller of near-infinite proportions, will be on display at PAX East April 6-8 in Boston. We're also thrilled to reveal AVWW 1.0 will coincide with the title's Steam release on April 23.
AVWW has heavily evolved since we began openly developing it back in January 2011; with elements of platforming, puzzle, shump, strategy, and other genres streamlined into the core game mechanics. The world of Environ is truly alive and now bursting with missions, mysteries, and so much more.
We invite attendees to stop by Booth #364 during the three day expo to play the game as it prepares to exit the beta phase later this month. Along with four demo stations, we've got plenty of swag to hand out including those all alluring buttons, cards, and other fancy items.
To get a taste of what the booth will look like, head over to our CEO/lead programmer Chris Park's Games By Design blog for a peak at the banners we've put together from the game's concept art. Those interested in the system requirements for the PC/Mac title can check them out on Arcen's news blog as well.
See you in Boston!
About A Valley Without Wind
The full beta version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC and Mac for pre-order at a 33% discount from the game's official launch price of $14.99. Customers gain instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases through 1.0 and beyond. The game can be purchased and downloaded directly through the developer as well as on GamersGate, Impulse, and MacGamesStore. The game's launch on Steam is set for April 23. A demo is also available, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only some tier restrictions.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is constantly in development. It continues to evolve, with new content and improvements added all the time as it progresses toward official launch (as well as long after its 1.0 release). Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. To get more involved with how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects be sure to stop by our forums.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook, Google+ and/or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
Tidalis Official 1.016
This release doesn't include any new content, but it really improves
the game in general. The biggest change here is an upgrade of the Unity
3D engine (which powers Tidalis) from version 2.6 to version 3.1. The
number of improvements in the Unity engine between those two versions is
nothing short of staggering, and that alone fixes the
unable-to-set-screen-resolution issues on OSX, as well as making
performance better in general. It also resolved some annoying font
wrapping issues that were caused by the Unity 2.6 engine.
Going along with that, for AI War 4.0 we had to develop out a
new, higher-performance rendering pipeline to go on top of the Unity
engine; the rendering pipeline we'd been using in Tidalis just wasn't
nearly fast enough to handle AI War. Tidalis is a much lighter-weight
game visually compared to AI War, but even so we've backported the new
pipeline from AI War to Tidalis, and the result is a puzzle game that
runs even smoother, and which will run well on even slower hardware.
Great news for netbooks and older laptops.
Another huge mechanics addition is the addition of a second
keyboard player. Previously, Tidalis supported one mouse player and one
keyboard player. Now it supports one mouse player and up to two
keyboard players, all on one computer. This is particularly useful for
those players who are mapping gamepads to the keyboard keys. It also
increases the game from being up to 2 player local (6 player online) to
being 3 payer local (6 player online), although it's still a maximum of
two actual game boards in local or online play.
Aside from all of the above, there are also a small number of
general polish bugfixes.
Tidalis Lite The other big news is that we've introduced Tidalis Lite,
a scaled-down web version of the game that players can enjoy for free. Tidalis Lite is an interesting experiment for us. It's not a demo
-- we already have one of those -- and yet it's not quite a full game, either.
We took the idea from the iPhone space, where paid full versions and
free lite versions are the norm. People are free to enjoy the lite
version of a game as basically a bite-sized experience that stands on
its own, or if they like it enough and want more, they can move up to
the full version.
Heck, if you aren't sure after trying the lite version, you can try out
the full demo. The lite version and the demo version have a lot of
overlap in what they give away for free, but there's quite a bit that is
only in one version or the other. The lite version is the
quickest, easiest way to dip your toes into the game: it's only a 6.7mb
download, assuming you already have the unity web player (which is tiny, too).
Tidalis 1.016Full Installer Links
Don't yet have Tidalis, or haven't yet tried the demo? You can now get
the full 1.005 installer from our Download Tidalis
page, rather than starting with 1.000 and upgrading after the fact.
Tidalis 1.016Manual Patch Links
The in-game updater should work just fine for anyone with an Internet
connection, but if you'd like a patch that you can manually apply, here
are the links for that. Bear in mind that you must already have
version 1.005 or later of the game for these patches to work -- they are
not cumulative for versions older than 1.005.
The day that puzzle fans have been waiting for has finally arrived! After three months in public beta, the official version of Tidalis has finally launched! The game is now out on Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, GamersGate, myGameIQ (who just had their own launch this week, too, by the way), MacGameStore.com, and our own site store. In celebration of this event, Tidalis is 10% off of its normal price of $9.99 for this first week. We've also got a new launch trailer to share:
Not Familiar With Tidalis Yet?
Tidalis is a block-based puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new "streams" mechanic.
The basic rules of the game are this: blocks fall down into the board and have a color and an arrow direction. If a
stack of blocks exceeds the height of the board, you lose. In order to clear blocks, you must right-click and drag
paths through the arrows to set up chain reactions of like-colored blocks.
If this sounds simple, that's because it is -- you'll be lining up lengthy chains within minutes. But you'll be
surprised how much brainpower it takes to set up combos of multiple chains, and the many brainteaser-style puzzles
include some real stumpers. Tidalis has co-op and competitive multiplayer modes (both online and offline);
action-oriented modes and timer-less brainteasers; a lengthy, casual-friendly adventure mode; twenty unique game modes
providing innumerable twists to the basic gameplay; dozens of special blocks and items; and over fifty minutes of
beautiful music to go with the painterly art.
In short, several games' worth of content are built on top of this core
mechanic, which you'll quickly find to be as iconic as it is novel.
For Those Who Prefer Bullet Points:
* Puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new mechanic.
* Two-player co-op and competitive play (both local and networked).
* A wide selection of both action-oriented or brainteaser-like levels.
* Casual-friendly adventure mode, hardcore-focused custom games and vs modes.
* 20+ game styles, and dozens of items and special blocks.
* Rich, painterly art style and beautiful music.
* Players can create and share whole new themes, levels, and adventures.
* Options for colorblind players, players averse to lots of light and motion, and older computers.
For Those Who Prefer Really Long And Over-Detailed Lists:
* Supported Platforms: Mac OSX "Panther" 10.39 or higher, Windows 2000 or later
* Game Styles: Normal, Zen, Sun & Moon, Line Clear, Graviton, Frenzy, Featherweight, Trampoline, Light-Up, Item Survival, Water, Wind, Jumping Bean, Limited Streams, Eater Defense, Solitaire, Speed-Up, Block Swap, Shuffle, Bumpers
* Difficulty ranging from 0-10
* 115 Adventure Levels, 69 Brainteasers, 9 Ranked Boards, 5 Sampler Levels
* Block Sets: Smooth, Faces, Pixel, AI War, Organic, Shapes
* Music/Art Themes: Cavern, Fishing Village, Fishing Village Night, Forest, Forest Night, Night Marsh, Night Marsh Variance, Open Plains, Open Plains Cloudy, Rainy Mud Flats, Tidal Wreckage, Volcano, Windy Mountaintop, Jeweled Palace, River, Snowy Lowlands, Temple, Foothills, Hidden Theme 1, Hidden Theme 2, Hidden Theme 3
* General Special Blocks: Glass, Stone, Tinder, Fire, Ice, Bubble, Charred, Eater, Direction Locked, Color Reactive, Metal Grille, Turnip, Magnet (Repulsor), Magnet (Attractor), Quad Repeater, Flipper (180), Flipper (45), Crystalizer, Color Blocker, Emission Statue, Pit Monster, Sick, Cured, Living Stone, Inverter, Energizer
* Puzzle-only (or special mode) Special Blocks: Plastic, Metal, Wall (Passable), Wall (Solid), Water Fish, Water Balloon, Sponge, Apple, Golden Apple, Empty Block
* Easy, game-integrated game updates
* Mouse or keyboard controls, with keyboard control customization
* Multiple adventure savegames
* In-game tutorials
* Combinations of game modes in custom games
* Fun adventure mode story: Intro Cutscene, 45 Main Story Cutscenes, 6 Hidden Cutscenes, Ending Cutscene
* General Items: Place Color Block, Place Special Block, Can 'O Beans, Extend, Constrain, Crystal, Quake Hammer, Lightning, Question Mark, Huge Boulder, Rainbow, Flood, Icer, Turnipalooza, Color Popper, Fence, Hourglass, Running Shoes, Feather, Barbells, U-Turn, Wind Burst, Scrambler, Insta-Streams, Molasses-Streams
* Puzzle-only (or special mode) Items: Safety Pin
* VS Modes: Garbage, Endurance, or Freeform
* Co-Op-Only Modes: Sun or Moon, Block Vaporizer, Item Buddies
* Limited Vs AI
* 64 Achievements
* Adventure collectibles and brainteaser titles
* Level Editor, Adventure Editor, and Theme Editor
* Per-player handicaps, co-op items
* Local high scoreboards (daily and overall)
* Network play for up to two computers, with up to two players on each computer (so 2-4 players in all).
* Alternatively, local 2-player multiplayer on a single computer.
* Server listings and filtering.
* Ability to sumbmit high scores and achievements to twitter.
We Would Like To Thank...
... our staff for their incredible dedication and the long hours it took to make this game a reality. Everyone on the team was working long hours and into the wee hours of the morning on their parts of the game, which is something Arcen would never demand of staff -- but the enthusiasm of everyone on the team for this project was so great that people were doing this of their own accord. June was admittedly pretty intense, but we pulled through and the game is better than we could have ever expected. On that note, we would also like to thank...
... the family and friends of our staff for their support and help as well. Many of them acted as alpha and beta testers, contributed design ideas, contributed levels or art or even more significant chunks of content. Thanks for your understanding and aid during this long project! And on that note, we'd especially like to thank...
... the fans who supported Tidalis during the beta, both with their patronage and with their ideas, comments, suggestions, and bug reports. The game wouldn't have been the same without you folks, and your encouragement helped us to make the game ever better. And next to last, a big thanks to...
... the existing AI War fanbase, for their understanding during this last month when AI War hasn't gotten the attention that we normally would give it. There are big things coming up soon for AI War (the 4.0 version as well as the for-charity micro expansion), but June and July have definitely been an unusual dry spell for the game. Thankfully there has still been a lot of discussion and involvement of the community on the forums, and this next official release for AI War is going to be extra polished thanks to all the time folks have had to work with the beta versions of that. Lastly, we'd like to thank...
...all of our amazing distribution partners! It's always a challenge to be an indie company, but our partners in a very real way are the ones that make it possible for us to be in business. They provide us with a level of visibility and a level of access to potential fanbases that we never would have access to without them:
Upcoming Tidalis DLC!
We are planning some free DLC goodies in the coming months, so keep an eye out! The game is already jam-packed with features and content, as you can see above, but we still have a lot of good ideas that we would like to explore post-release. Tidalis won't be in "perpetual development" in the same fashion that AI War is -- we just don't have the staff to maintain that -- but we plan on dropping in some goodies for Tidalis from time to time on a running basis. If there are a lot of custom levels, adventures, and such submitted by fans on the official forums, we might also do a community DLC release that we push out to all customers of the game. So there's still a chance to see your levels (and your name or nickname) become part of the official Tidalis package! Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy Tidalis as much as we enjoyed making it!
Arcen Games is pleased to announce the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first expansion to their hit RTS/4X hybrid, AI War! You can download a trial version or purchase a license key on the details page for the expansion. Thanks to all of our fans who have helped to make this game possible with their feedback, suggestions, and preorders over the last months!
The Zenith Remnant includes a massive amount of new content that brings the galaxy to life in exciting ways. Capturables, special AI ships, and ancient alien artifacts litter the cosmos, making your choices as a player more varied than ever. Do you risk total war with the AI by capturing and rebuilding a massive golem? Do you procure defensive superweapons from Zenith traders?
Maybe you’d like to finally be able to build the powerful Core ships that the AI has long used -- or the all-new experimental ships with strange and powerful abilities. Befriend the dangerous alien Dyson Sphere by helping it against the AI forces, or sneak around it to avoid incurring its wrath (that thing is moody). If you see a Devourer Golem, don’t forget to run -- preferably as it pummels your enemies. Any path you take, there are consequences; AI War is known for being heavily strategic even amongst strategy games, and The Zenith Remnant takes it to new heights.
Key Features * 122 new ships, including:
* 14 new ship classes with a variety of abilities.
* 7 massive capturable "Golem" ships.
* Dozens of other new capturables, including “experimental” ships.
* 12 new AI Types.
* 4 Zenith alien minor factions (NPCs).
* Over 40 minutes of new in-game music tracks.
* Several new map styles.
* Several new AI behaviors and many related special AI weapons.
Availability And Pricing
The Zenith Remnant has a retail price of $9.99 USD (or equivalent currency), and is digitally available in English in all territories. The expansion will, starting today, be available through all of our online partners including Impulse, Steam, Direct2Drive, and GamersGate.
50% Off Sale On AI War
In celebration of the release of the expansion, we and most all of our partners are selling the base game of AI War: Fleet Command at a 50% discount until the 18th or 19th (the end date varies depending on the vendor). If you already have the game, now's the perfect time to get a friend into it so that you can enjoy some co-op together!
Arcen Games is pleased to announce the release of AI War: Fleet
Command version 1.001. You can download a trial version
of the game, as well as purchase
a license key to unlock the full version. If you already have the
game or demo installed, just hit "Check For Updates" inside the game to
get the latest patch.
More Free DLC: A new unit is now available in your Starship
Constructors! Leech Starships (shown left) are basically an upgraded
version of the existing Raid Starship. The Leech Starships are the first
starships to have the Reclamator ability, which makes them take over
ships they kill (like parasites or core leeches).
The AI also has two elusive new units: AI Troop Accelerators, and
Anti-Starship Arachnids. The arachnids might come out if you spam
starships at an AI planet for too long, but for the Troop Accelerators
you'll just have to keep your eyes open. There's a small chance you
might see one on any given galaxy map -- and there's a chance that they
will even be inserted into your existing savegames when you install the
latest patch.
In addition, there are a number of small balance tweaks, the most
significant ones dealing with making the single player experience more
akin to the multiplayer experience in terms of resources available.
Lastly, the final two in-game music tracks are now in place (and they
are beautiful); there is also now victory and defeat music. AI War is
now considered fully released -- we'll continue doing patches with AI
upgrades, free DLC, and any minor bugfixes/balance shifts that are
needed (like any other RTS game, players tend to find these small issues
over time). Enjoy!
More Free DLC: A new unit is now available in your Starship
Constructors! Leech Starships (shown left) are basically an upgraded
version of the existing Raid Starship. The Leech Starships are the first
starships to have the Reclamator ability, which makes them take over
ships they kill (like parasites or core leeches).