I'm a bit late on posting this, but I just wanted to say thanks to all of our supporters who made this year our most successful yet as an indie developer. We're all hugely grateful, and hope that you have a happy, restful holiday season with your family. And that you have plenty of time to play some games, too, be they ours or otherwise. :)
To that end on our own side, every year between Christmas and New Years we're "closed." We still check the emails and forums, but we're slower to do so, and we're not doing any active development during that week-long period. This really helps us recharge to come into January with a bang.
Business will resume as normal for us on January 2nd. In the meantime, thanks again and happy holidays!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
AI War: Children of Neinzul donations to Child's Play reach $30,741.89
As of December 23rd, 2011, we have so far raised and donated $30,741.89 for Child's Play! That's $2,962.77 since our September update, all of which has already gone directly to the charity.
That closes out the year with $20,212.18 having been raised and donated in 2011 -- smashing our 2010 numbers, and well more than doubling our original goal of $14,000.00, which we could not be more pleased about.
And sales of Children of Neinzul are still going strong, so there's a chance we might be able to hit triple our goal by the time 2012 is over. We'll keep everyone posted on how the donations are doing. Once again, we're ecstatic to continue our on-going contributions!
More About AI War: Children of Neinzul and Child's Play
When you purchase AI War: Children Of Neinzul, you're not only getting an exciting new expansion, you're also supporting an important cause. Arcen Games has partnered with the Child's Play charity, pledging 100% of the profits from sale of Children of Neinzul (excepting any taxes and distributor fees) to helping sick kids in need.
The staff at Arcen has long admired the work done by Child's Play, and we're very excited to finally be able to contribute in a substantial manner. Our goal for 2010 was to raise $14,000.00 USD for Child's Play, but even after 2010 all of the proceeds from this micro-expansion are continuing to be donated to the charity.
At the moment, this micro-expansion is available directly through the Arcen Online Store ($3.99 USD), as well as through Steam, Impulse, and GamersGate.
And sales of Children of Neinzul are still going strong, so there's a chance we might be able to hit triple our goal by the time 2012 is over. We'll keep everyone posted on how the donations are doing. Once again, we're ecstatic to continue our on-going contributions!
More About AI War: Children of Neinzul and Child's Play
When you purchase AI War: Children Of Neinzul, you're not only getting an exciting new expansion, you're also supporting an important cause. Arcen Games has partnered with the Child's Play charity, pledging 100% of the profits from sale of Children of Neinzul (excepting any taxes and distributor fees) to helping sick kids in need.
The staff at Arcen has long admired the work done by Child's Play, and we're very excited to finally be able to contribute in a substantial manner. Our goal for 2010 was to raise $14,000.00 USD for Child's Play, but even after 2010 all of the proceeds from this micro-expansion are continuing to be donated to the charity.
At the moment, this micro-expansion is available directly through the Arcen Online Store ($3.99 USD), as well as through Steam, Impulse, and GamersGate.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.555, "Headshotting, Kneecapping, and Ice Pirate Patrols" Released!
This one is a really substantial release, so it took us a couple of days.
Enemy Weakspots
First of all are the new enemy weakspots, which really add a lot to the game -- shooting spells into a skelebot's head now does 2x damage, while shooting it in the legs slows it down, for example. Not all enemies have weakspots, but most of the larger enemies do. This really gives you a lot more tactical options in some respects, and also rewards skillshots in a much more substantial way.
In the future we'll be expanding this system to include things like "strong spots" where the enemy counterattacks you when you hit it in a certain area, etc. With that sort of functionality, plus the coming multi-part enemies, we'll really have a lot of interesting things going.
New Enemies
In order to make compelling missions for players to complete, first we really need... more spells and enemies! So that's what we're working on at the moment. A lot of that has also involved expanding our engine's enemy-design capabilities themselves, which is pretty cool. Already the work from the last two days makes a lot of new kinds of enemies possible, such as for instance the new Ice Pirate Patrol Ships.
The Ice Pirates actually can't be damaged by you directly, as they have this massive flying airship in the background and they shell you with big blocks of ice from a distance. The only thing you can do at the moment is avoid the ice. However, there will be missions available that specifically allow you to destroy the ice pirates as a result of the mission, which will be one of those opportunity costs to consider when selecting missions in the future.
We've got another half dozen enemies in the works now, too, most of which already have their art in place but not yet their code. Keith and I are both working on this sort of thing for the time being, so we're able to really push into territory that is new for the game, enemy-wise.
New Spells
There are two new spells in this one.
Summon Tornado is our second summon spell (the other being summon rhino), and this one is really different. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage to enemies, but it does fling them into the air while damaging them moderately. It also follows you around, versus just running off into the distance, so that can be really useful and fun as well.
In order to make summon tornado really work very well, we also had to completely redo the whole knockback immunity system. Now enemies have varying degrees of knockback resistance, rather than a black and white "vulnerable or completely immune" system. This breathes new life into the existing splash back spell, and makes a lot of other interesting things possible as we move forward.
The second new spell in this version was a really complex one to add, but again it adds a lot of new functionality for us with spells for both players and enemies. This one is called Gold Boomerang, and it works much like you'd expect. The cool thing about it is that it can be used to hit multiple enemies in a line, or even the same enemy more than once. Thanks to Dizzard for suggesting this one all the way back in October!
Ow, Shrapnel!
This version also has barrels that explode, harming any players, enemies, or NPCs that are near to them. Expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing with various background objects, which will help to make the terrain a lot more of a tactically-dense environment.
More to come soon. Just as forewarning we'll be closed during the week between Christmas and New Years, but we should be able to squeeze in one more release before the holiday break. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Enemy Weakspots
First of all are the new enemy weakspots, which really add a lot to the game -- shooting spells into a skelebot's head now does 2x damage, while shooting it in the legs slows it down, for example. Not all enemies have weakspots, but most of the larger enemies do. This really gives you a lot more tactical options in some respects, and also rewards skillshots in a much more substantial way.
In the future we'll be expanding this system to include things like "strong spots" where the enemy counterattacks you when you hit it in a certain area, etc. With that sort of functionality, plus the coming multi-part enemies, we'll really have a lot of interesting things going.
New Enemies
In order to make compelling missions for players to complete, first we really need... more spells and enemies! So that's what we're working on at the moment. A lot of that has also involved expanding our engine's enemy-design capabilities themselves, which is pretty cool. Already the work from the last two days makes a lot of new kinds of enemies possible, such as for instance the new Ice Pirate Patrol Ships.
The Ice Pirates actually can't be damaged by you directly, as they have this massive flying airship in the background and they shell you with big blocks of ice from a distance. The only thing you can do at the moment is avoid the ice. However, there will be missions available that specifically allow you to destroy the ice pirates as a result of the mission, which will be one of those opportunity costs to consider when selecting missions in the future.
We've got another half dozen enemies in the works now, too, most of which already have their art in place but not yet their code. Keith and I are both working on this sort of thing for the time being, so we're able to really push into territory that is new for the game, enemy-wise.
New Spells
There are two new spells in this one.
Summon Tornado is our second summon spell (the other being summon rhino), and this one is really different. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage to enemies, but it does fling them into the air while damaging them moderately. It also follows you around, versus just running off into the distance, so that can be really useful and fun as well.
In order to make summon tornado really work very well, we also had to completely redo the whole knockback immunity system. Now enemies have varying degrees of knockback resistance, rather than a black and white "vulnerable or completely immune" system. This breathes new life into the existing splash back spell, and makes a lot of other interesting things possible as we move forward.
The second new spell in this version was a really complex one to add, but again it adds a lot of new functionality for us with spells for both players and enemies. This one is called Gold Boomerang, and it works much like you'd expect. The cool thing about it is that it can be used to hit multiple enemies in a line, or even the same enemy more than once. Thanks to Dizzard for suggesting this one all the way back in October!
Ow, Shrapnel!
This version also has barrels that explode, harming any players, enemies, or NPCs that are near to them. Expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing with various background objects, which will help to make the terrain a lot more of a tactically-dense environment.
More to come soon. Just as forewarning we'll be closed during the week between Christmas and New Years, but we should be able to squeeze in one more release before the holiday break. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
AVWW: Last Chance For IndieDB Top 100 Voting
There's just a few hours left to vote for IndieDB's Indie of the Year Top 100 competition. A Valley Without Wind has been in the mix and making a push toward the final stage where the ten top vote getters will compete the last week of 2011 for the right to be called IOTY.If you've yet to have your say in the competition, head over to the Top 100 page and take a look at all the great games. Or if you'd like to vote for AVWW specifically head over to our IndieDB page, scroll down to the "Top 100 Game of 2011" section, and click on the red button that states "vote for this game."
Just over six hours left at the time of writing, so make sure to get your vote submitted in time!
AI War Featured Today In Steam's Holiday Sale Gift Pile Objectives
Our space strategy title AI War is featured today on Steam's Holiday Sale Gift Pile! For those participating in the mega giveaway contest, make sure to snag the holiday-themed achievement for a gift and/or another token to put into the drawing that will see one entrant walking away with the entire Steam catalog. Which is rather insane.What's the objective you say? Glad you asked:
In The Midst Of A Cold, Dark Winter - Lose at least 30,000 ships in a single game.
Best of luck picking it up and adding the loot to your growing pile! Remember that both AI War (75% off) and our puzzler Tidalis (just $2) plus all DLC are on massive discount via Steam today through December 31st.
AVWW Beta 0.553 & 0.554, "Shield Dash" Released!
This one is actually a series of two releases. The first was purely a bugfix version to avoid more people having issues with world corruption that could happen in 0.552. The second release has new tweaks and features, mainly centering around mana recharge and how mana can be expended.
This will have an effect on a variety of spells coming up, but most notably at the moment it completely redefines how both Storm Dash and Rush work, and how the four different elemental shields work. Players had found the shields really difficult to use in particular, and now they should be far more useful.
There are several other small-but-really-nice tweaks in here, too, such as a rebalance of the espers.
More to come soon. At the moment we're working on things like weakspots for enemies, new enemies and environmental objects, and new on-death effects for various existing objects. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
This will have an effect on a variety of spells coming up, but most notably at the moment it completely redefines how both Storm Dash and Rush work, and how the four different elemental shields work. Players had found the shields really difficult to use in particular, and now they should be far more useful.
There are several other small-but-really-nice tweaks in here, too, such as a rebalance of the espers.
More to come soon. At the moment we're working on things like weakspots for enemies, new enemies and environmental objects, and new on-death effects for various existing objects. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Steam Holiday Sale: AI War Products 75% Off And Two Dollar Tidalis
A quick note that our games Tidalis and AI War are on massive discount as part of Steam's Holiday Sale that runs now through December 31st. Keep an eye on the Holiday Sale Gift Pile challenges page during the duration of the event as well for a chance to win every single game in Steam's catalog and other prizes.As far as our titles go, you'll be able to grab Tidalis for 80% off the $10 tag, and AI War plus all DLC for 75% off--or go for the Alien Bundle and get even more savings. If you or any of your loved ones are in for some two buck Tidalis and/or all of AI War for the cost of a fast food combo, best not to miss this great opportunity to pick up some copies on the cheap.
Interested in trying before you buy? Check out the demos on the Steam game pages, or download them here (AI War) and here (Tidalis).
Friday, December 16, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.552, "Parallax And The End Of The World" Released!
This one includes a number of new things, including various balance and bugfix items that players noted from the prior version. The changes to fire touch and the way that the class-based spell cooldowns work should be particularly welcome. And the reference info and other in-game text is now up to date with all the recent changes from our powercoding period, too.
Parallax Backdrops
The most striking thing about this release visually is no doubt the new parallax backgrounds. This provides a welcome sense of depth, as well as really visually differentiating the outdoor areas to a degree not seen prior to now. Making some of the forest-y areas really feel heavily forested has been a struggle ever since the switch of the game to side view, but the parallax backgrounds really let us nail that and more.
End Of The World (Well, Continent)
Mechanically speaking, the biggest change in this version is the addition of the Overlord's threat against the continent. Every period that passes (ie, every mission that you do) brings the continent one step closer to destruction. In a few releases, when missions are the only source of EXP beyond the overlord and lieutenants themselves, this will really come together into some interesting choices.
Each continent is essentially a cage match between you and the overlord, and the average completion time that we're expecting per continent is around the 13 hour mark once we finish with getting the missions where we want them -- in other words, about the same average as a campaign in AI War. Some people will obviously be faster or slower, and there's no particular time limit.
The destruction of the continent comes after a certain number of periods, but you can take your time as much as you want, and think as long as you need, between each mission you choose to undertake. The impending continental destruction is very analogous to the AI progress in AI War, drawing a lot of parallels in terms of the sort of choices it presents to the player.
If you don't find that sort of thing fun, you can turn the strategic difficulty down to 1 or 2. If you want it to be harder than the default, you can crank it up to 4 or (god forbid) 5. Playing on strategic difficulty 5 means that you need to be prepared to take out the overlord while being barely the same level as him, or even being lower-level than him if you're doing any secret missions or dealing with any threat. That's... really rough.
We may have to add some more difficulty gradations in there for the strategic side, but we'll decide that later once we're getting testing feedback on a fully-implemented mission system. Right now this is still sort of the extended preview.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Parallax Backdrops
The most striking thing about this release visually is no doubt the new parallax backgrounds. This provides a welcome sense of depth, as well as really visually differentiating the outdoor areas to a degree not seen prior to now. Making some of the forest-y areas really feel heavily forested has been a struggle ever since the switch of the game to side view, but the parallax backgrounds really let us nail that and more.
End Of The World (Well, Continent)
Mechanically speaking, the biggest change in this version is the addition of the Overlord's threat against the continent. Every period that passes (ie, every mission that you do) brings the continent one step closer to destruction. In a few releases, when missions are the only source of EXP beyond the overlord and lieutenants themselves, this will really come together into some interesting choices.
Each continent is essentially a cage match between you and the overlord, and the average completion time that we're expecting per continent is around the 13 hour mark once we finish with getting the missions where we want them -- in other words, about the same average as a campaign in AI War. Some people will obviously be faster or slower, and there's no particular time limit.
The destruction of the continent comes after a certain number of periods, but you can take your time as much as you want, and think as long as you need, between each mission you choose to undertake. The impending continental destruction is very analogous to the AI progress in AI War, drawing a lot of parallels in terms of the sort of choices it presents to the player.
If you don't find that sort of thing fun, you can turn the strategic difficulty down to 1 or 2. If you want it to be harder than the default, you can crank it up to 4 or (god forbid) 5. Playing on strategic difficulty 5 means that you need to be prepared to take out the overlord while being barely the same level as him, or even being lower-level than him if you're doing any secret missions or dealing with any threat. That's... really rough.
We may have to add some more difficulty gradations in there for the strategic side, but we'll decide that later once we're getting testing feedback on a fully-implemented mission system. Right now this is still sort of the extended preview.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.551, "Power Coding Finale: New Crafting Model, More Missions," Released!
This one is the last of our power-coding releases -- at least in this stretch. The framework of everything we wanted to accomplish in that stretch of power-coding is now done, and now it comes more to balance, polish, and putting some meat on the new bones.
New Crafting Model, No More Tiers
It was pointed out, and rightly so, that the older model of tiers in the game was something of a grind. Every 10 levels your stuff would start to degrade, and you'd have to get new stuff to replace it. Even the people who love the game felt like that was a very visible treadmill.
For us, the intent wasn't to build a treadmill, but it was to be able to have a sort of "many game progressions in one world" quality to the game. And there are only two ways to have an infinite progression: 1) infinitely rising stats, which are murder to balance and tend not to work very well even then; or 2) periodically causing players to lose their stuff in some fashion.
And the simple fact is, losing your stuff is not fun. Especially when it's on some arbitrary and predictable timetable as you play.
The solution we settled on, after much discussion with players, was to make it so that spells and crafting are all a per-continent thing. You unlock spells on a continent by crafting them once, and then you get to keep them forever on that continent. If you ever drop or lose them, you can equip a new copy of that spell for free at any spellgem workbench. So can any other player, when it's a multiplayer server.
But each continent has its own magic selection, and so when you go to a new continent only a core of your spells will actually work there. You can carry your inventory with you, so it's not getting lost or rearranged or anything, but you can't use anything beyond the basics on the new continent. Your process of getting more powerful so that you can face the overlord will involve unlocking the spells that you think will best help you achieve those goals.
This has all the advantages of being able to play "multiple game progressions in a single world," without making for arbitrary degradation of spellgems. There's a lot of other things related to this that changed for the better, such as making the crafting commodities inventory central per continent rather than being something that is per-player (so again this is great for multiplayer), and changing up the material costs for all the spells. Definitely check out those release notes if you want the whole scoop.
More Missions
For details on how the new mission system will work long-term, please see this link. There are several forum threads with older designs in them, so make sure you're not looking at something outdated if you look in the forums.
This new release makes it possible for players to rescue NPCs and raise wind shelters via the missions system. The contents of both of these missions is incredibly temporary and boring -- it's identical to the rare commodity tower missions.
One of the core next things that Keith and I are going to be working on is not only new missions in general (new things you get for completing a mission, in other words), but new ways for the missions to actually play out. It won't always be fighting a bunch of bosses, or even fighting at all. Lots of cool things planned there, but we just need time to actually get them in place! You'll start seeing more of that in the next few days and week, actually.
No More Strategic Map
The strategic map has now officially been disabled. There were a few things that you could do on the older strategic map that you can't do yet in the missions system, but that stuff is coming -- along with new things that had been planned for the strategic map but which had never been implemented.
The idea with the missions is that they completely replace the strategic map in terms of how they let you do your strategizing. The result is more like certain boardgames -- Settlers of Catan and Dominion come most to mind for me personally -- rather than like a traditional turn based strategy game on the PC.
Worried About Freeform Exploration? Definitely Don't Be!
We've had a few folks that expressed concerns that freeform exploration is going away. That definitely won't happen!
There's going to be all sorts of cool stuff to explore for and find even outside the main mission structure, and we'll be doing things like optional secret missions that you can only find via exploration, too. We'll probably even get into world map stuff like secret islands that you can uncover out on the sea, etc, but that's a bit further off.
For me personally, being able to go off the beaten track and explore is really key to having a fun adventure game, so the exploration-minded need not worry. During this transitional period most of the focus is going into the missions, so that does skew things temporarily -- but that's just a short-term factor of this being beta, not a new design direction for the game itself.
New GUI Graphics And Revised Logo
Phil did some awesome new GUI graphics for us months ago, and I just have finally had time to actually put them in the game. They really make a huge difference! Things are a lot cleaner and easier to read, and in general more attractive.
I also took this opportunity to improve the AVWW logo, while still keeping the identical shape of the text. Now it just looks fancier and more crystalline.
Done Powercoding, But Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted above, Keith and I have completed our power coding phase. So that's good news, we're now going to be working on content and other new stuff, rather than a bunch of tectonic shifts to the underlying game. But still, given the scope of the changes, the balance is likely still off at the moment. This is something we very much want to hear about, now!
The missions still are in an incomplete form, meaning that some aspects of balance still won't be possible to completely finish yet, but in general we're getting there, I think.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
New Crafting Model, No More Tiers
It was pointed out, and rightly so, that the older model of tiers in the game was something of a grind. Every 10 levels your stuff would start to degrade, and you'd have to get new stuff to replace it. Even the people who love the game felt like that was a very visible treadmill.
For us, the intent wasn't to build a treadmill, but it was to be able to have a sort of "many game progressions in one world" quality to the game. And there are only two ways to have an infinite progression: 1) infinitely rising stats, which are murder to balance and tend not to work very well even then; or 2) periodically causing players to lose their stuff in some fashion.
And the simple fact is, losing your stuff is not fun. Especially when it's on some arbitrary and predictable timetable as you play.
The solution we settled on, after much discussion with players, was to make it so that spells and crafting are all a per-continent thing. You unlock spells on a continent by crafting them once, and then you get to keep them forever on that continent. If you ever drop or lose them, you can equip a new copy of that spell for free at any spellgem workbench. So can any other player, when it's a multiplayer server.
But each continent has its own magic selection, and so when you go to a new continent only a core of your spells will actually work there. You can carry your inventory with you, so it's not getting lost or rearranged or anything, but you can't use anything beyond the basics on the new continent. Your process of getting more powerful so that you can face the overlord will involve unlocking the spells that you think will best help you achieve those goals.
This has all the advantages of being able to play "multiple game progressions in a single world," without making for arbitrary degradation of spellgems. There's a lot of other things related to this that changed for the better, such as making the crafting commodities inventory central per continent rather than being something that is per-player (so again this is great for multiplayer), and changing up the material costs for all the spells. Definitely check out those release notes if you want the whole scoop.
More Missions
For details on how the new mission system will work long-term, please see this link. There are several forum threads with older designs in them, so make sure you're not looking at something outdated if you look in the forums.
This new release makes it possible for players to rescue NPCs and raise wind shelters via the missions system. The contents of both of these missions is incredibly temporary and boring -- it's identical to the rare commodity tower missions.
One of the core next things that Keith and I are going to be working on is not only new missions in general (new things you get for completing a mission, in other words), but new ways for the missions to actually play out. It won't always be fighting a bunch of bosses, or even fighting at all. Lots of cool things planned there, but we just need time to actually get them in place! You'll start seeing more of that in the next few days and week, actually.
No More Strategic Map
The strategic map has now officially been disabled. There were a few things that you could do on the older strategic map that you can't do yet in the missions system, but that stuff is coming -- along with new things that had been planned for the strategic map but which had never been implemented.
The idea with the missions is that they completely replace the strategic map in terms of how they let you do your strategizing. The result is more like certain boardgames -- Settlers of Catan and Dominion come most to mind for me personally -- rather than like a traditional turn based strategy game on the PC.
Worried About Freeform Exploration? Definitely Don't Be!
We've had a few folks that expressed concerns that freeform exploration is going away. That definitely won't happen!
There's going to be all sorts of cool stuff to explore for and find even outside the main mission structure, and we'll be doing things like optional secret missions that you can only find via exploration, too. We'll probably even get into world map stuff like secret islands that you can uncover out on the sea, etc, but that's a bit further off.
For me personally, being able to go off the beaten track and explore is really key to having a fun adventure game, so the exploration-minded need not worry. During this transitional period most of the focus is going into the missions, so that does skew things temporarily -- but that's just a short-term factor of this being beta, not a new design direction for the game itself.
New GUI Graphics And Revised Logo
Phil did some awesome new GUI graphics for us months ago, and I just have finally had time to actually put them in the game. They really make a huge difference! Things are a lot cleaner and easier to read, and in general more attractive.
I also took this opportunity to improve the AVWW logo, while still keeping the identical shape of the text. Now it just looks fancier and more crystalline.
Done Powercoding, But Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted above, Keith and I have completed our power coding phase. So that's good news, we're now going to be working on content and other new stuff, rather than a bunch of tectonic shifts to the underlying game. But still, given the scope of the changes, the balance is likely still off at the moment. This is something we very much want to hear about, now!
The missions still are in an incomplete form, meaning that some aspects of balance still won't be possible to completely finish yet, but in general we're getting there, I think.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.550, "Power Coding Round 4: Mission System Basics," Released!
This one is one that we decided to push out today because there are a few critical balance tweaks and bugfixes that players could really use.
Mission System Preview
In terms of the core feature of this new version, the missions: the general framework is complete and in place, but there is currently only one kind of mission rather than the four we had planned for our first missions release. And that's definitely shy of the eight that we have planned for the next few weeks, let alone however many mission types we wind up with by 1.0.
So take this as sort of a preview of missions, more than anything else. Longer-term, missions will be the sole source of EXP (aside from killing lieutenants and overlords), but since they are still in a preview state we've left in the EXP containers and the EXP from bosses for now.
In the brainstorming subforum, we'd originally talked about having side missions and core missions. We also talked about making it a binary system and removing EXP all together. In further design discussion, Keith and I came up with a simpler approach that meets all of the goals of the above in a more fun fashion.
How The Mission System Will Work
The mission system framework itself is actually completely done in the current version. There will almost always be 7 missions, but right at the start there will be only 5 or 6 (this happens only when you are civ level 1 and 2 respectively).
The release notes talk about the three general levels of missions: the "stretch" ones that are higher than your civ level, the middle of the road ones that match your civ level, and what Keith and I were calling the "cop out" missions that are lower than your civ level (but we won't really call them that in-game!).
Each mission that is shown only will last for a certain number more of missions. Each time you undertake a mission, all of the other missions become unavailable until you complete that mission or abandon it. If you abandon it, you can try that mission again, or any other mission. If you complete that mission, then the mission and all its mission-specific dungeons disappear, and the counter counts down on all the other missions. As missions disappear, new missions appear to take their place.
This means that there's an opportunity cost to any mission you do, because you can never do all the missions. Some missions will focus more on improving the players' adventure options directly, while others will focus more on improving the civilization and thus helping out the adventurers a bit more indirectly (but still meaningfully).
So there will be all sorts of interesting choices that this system provides players with as they try to bend each continent to their will... but so far it's just a replacement for a way to get rare commodities. The first eight or so missions we're planning are all actually replacements for other activities that you could undertake previously in the game outside the mission structure. Things like rescuing NPCs, or building wind shelters, or destroying vortex pylons, are all planned to be missions and thus part of that opportunity-cost decision-making structure.
By the way, when you have multiple continents, you can have one active mission per continent, and the "mission time" is local to each continent, too. So that's a way for multiple groups to do different missions in multiplayer, versus everyone having to either collaborate on the same mission or go off on side exploration.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted last week, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming through last week and this week. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by this Wednesday or Thursday, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Mission System Preview
In terms of the core feature of this new version, the missions: the general framework is complete and in place, but there is currently only one kind of mission rather than the four we had planned for our first missions release. And that's definitely shy of the eight that we have planned for the next few weeks, let alone however many mission types we wind up with by 1.0.
So take this as sort of a preview of missions, more than anything else. Longer-term, missions will be the sole source of EXP (aside from killing lieutenants and overlords), but since they are still in a preview state we've left in the EXP containers and the EXP from bosses for now.
In the brainstorming subforum, we'd originally talked about having side missions and core missions. We also talked about making it a binary system and removing EXP all together. In further design discussion, Keith and I came up with a simpler approach that meets all of the goals of the above in a more fun fashion.
How The Mission System Will Work
The mission system framework itself is actually completely done in the current version. There will almost always be 7 missions, but right at the start there will be only 5 or 6 (this happens only when you are civ level 1 and 2 respectively).
The release notes talk about the three general levels of missions: the "stretch" ones that are higher than your civ level, the middle of the road ones that match your civ level, and what Keith and I were calling the "cop out" missions that are lower than your civ level (but we won't really call them that in-game!).
Each mission that is shown only will last for a certain number more of missions. Each time you undertake a mission, all of the other missions become unavailable until you complete that mission or abandon it. If you abandon it, you can try that mission again, or any other mission. If you complete that mission, then the mission and all its mission-specific dungeons disappear, and the counter counts down on all the other missions. As missions disappear, new missions appear to take their place.
This means that there's an opportunity cost to any mission you do, because you can never do all the missions. Some missions will focus more on improving the players' adventure options directly, while others will focus more on improving the civilization and thus helping out the adventurers a bit more indirectly (but still meaningfully).
So there will be all sorts of interesting choices that this system provides players with as they try to bend each continent to their will... but so far it's just a replacement for a way to get rare commodities. The first eight or so missions we're planning are all actually replacements for other activities that you could undertake previously in the game outside the mission structure. Things like rescuing NPCs, or building wind shelters, or destroying vortex pylons, are all planned to be missions and thus part of that opportunity-cost decision-making structure.
By the way, when you have multiple continents, you can have one active mission per continent, and the "mission time" is local to each continent, too. So that's a way for multiple groups to do different missions in multiplayer, versus everyone having to either collaborate on the same mission or go off on side exploration.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted last week, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming through last week and this week. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by this Wednesday or Thursday, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Monday, December 12, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.549, "Power Coding Round 3: Continents, New Mana Subsystem," Released!
This one is actually two huge changes to the game.
Continents
Previously, the world was just one big landmass, with smaller pieces of ocean stuck here and there. It was consistent with the story mythos about a 4D-scrambled world, but it was only so interesting. And worst of all, it made the dividing lines for where overlords were actively oppressing land, etc, really unclear. This was another thing discussed in the brainstorming subforum.
Pre-existing worlds are handled gracefully into the new system, basically taking whatever land they had and treating that as the first continent (and adding to it if it would be too small). With new worlds, you'll see the entire first continent as soon as you start up the world. Then when you reach civ level 20, a new continent will be discovered and you'll start being able to use the seaports to sail the seas!
There's actually still a fair bit more we'll need to do long-term with continents, such as names for continents and some other things of that nature, but for now the basics are really solid and are a definite improvement over the past way of doing things. It still fits with the mythos about a 4D-scrambled world, but each continent already feels so much more unique and interesting than the one big blob of landmass previously was.
New Mana Subsystem
This one was heavily discussed along with the health subsystem from the last release. There were a lot of varying opinions, but overall there were a lot of trends in player tastes that we managed to meet in most cases, I think.
The general idea of the new mana system is somewhat related to what we did with the health system: finding mana potions periodically was kind of a lame chore, and essentially your only limiter to mana was how much time you wanted to spend grinding these sorts of potions.
We considered some ammo-style subsystems, and while those were an improvement they were ultimately prey to the same sort of problems: they added some "running around and collecting stuff repeatedly" time without adding any actual fun. Even for really rare and powerful spells, having mana would be bad because players would tend to want to hoard that. Plus, making something tedious to get doesn't mean that players won't get it -- it means that they'll get it and complain about how tedious it was. We learned a lot about that from Knowledge Raiding in AI War.
So, the system we wound up going with treats mana as a tactical resource, while health is your "how far can I journey?" resource. Thus mana is now regenerating, and you never need to go out of your way to get more of it. Spell scrolls have mostly been removed (and the ability to craft them has been completely removed), and the spell scrolls we took away are now available as spellgems instead.
For most of the lower-power spells in the game, which is most of the spells in general that exist right now, this system plus cooldowns is all that is really needed. For the ultra-spells that we'll add later, they'd have additional tactical or strategic penalties for use, such as blighting the land or giving new buffs to the enemies they are used upon, etc. There's a lot of flexibility in what we can do, on a per-spell basis, to make them interesting and balanced.
THAT said, the spell balance as it is currently implemented is surely not perfect. This is something we will be wanting feedback on, particularly later in the week as we get through our power-coding phase. You'll notice that as part of this changeup, ride the lightning and storm dash have actually been nerfed a bit, now costing a lot more mana -- so you can use them perfectly well for navigating around many hazards, but using them during battle when you want your mana for offensive spells is going to be properly challenging to do.
Down To One Kind Of Crafting
So, as mentioned above, spellscroll crafting is gone -- though from time to time you'll still find spell scrolls like elusion or glpyh transfer, etc, in stash rooms.
The outfitter crafting is also now gone, and so when you need a snowsuit or heatsuit or wooden platforms, you'll actually need to go to the stash rooms and scavenge for them, as well. Similarly, the upcoming crests and spellshaping gems (that go with crests) will no longer be craftable either, but will instead be exploration rewards.
We basically realized that if we were going to have loot drops and exploration rewards that were notable, that we needed to make those things not just be craftable. Otherwise they're kind of lame as something to find! And at the same time, it was a great chance to simplify down to one kind of crafting instead of 5-7 kinds of crafting. Less overwhelming for new players, while not actually not removing any content -- just shifting around how and when you gain access to that content.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted last week, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming through last week and this week. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by this Wednesday or Thursday, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Continents
Previously, the world was just one big landmass, with smaller pieces of ocean stuck here and there. It was consistent with the story mythos about a 4D-scrambled world, but it was only so interesting. And worst of all, it made the dividing lines for where overlords were actively oppressing land, etc, really unclear. This was another thing discussed in the brainstorming subforum.
Pre-existing worlds are handled gracefully into the new system, basically taking whatever land they had and treating that as the first continent (and adding to it if it would be too small). With new worlds, you'll see the entire first continent as soon as you start up the world. Then when you reach civ level 20, a new continent will be discovered and you'll start being able to use the seaports to sail the seas!
There's actually still a fair bit more we'll need to do long-term with continents, such as names for continents and some other things of that nature, but for now the basics are really solid and are a definite improvement over the past way of doing things. It still fits with the mythos about a 4D-scrambled world, but each continent already feels so much more unique and interesting than the one big blob of landmass previously was.
New Mana Subsystem
This one was heavily discussed along with the health subsystem from the last release. There were a lot of varying opinions, but overall there were a lot of trends in player tastes that we managed to meet in most cases, I think.
The general idea of the new mana system is somewhat related to what we did with the health system: finding mana potions periodically was kind of a lame chore, and essentially your only limiter to mana was how much time you wanted to spend grinding these sorts of potions.
We considered some ammo-style subsystems, and while those were an improvement they were ultimately prey to the same sort of problems: they added some "running around and collecting stuff repeatedly" time without adding any actual fun. Even for really rare and powerful spells, having mana would be bad because players would tend to want to hoard that. Plus, making something tedious to get doesn't mean that players won't get it -- it means that they'll get it and complain about how tedious it was. We learned a lot about that from Knowledge Raiding in AI War.
So, the system we wound up going with treats mana as a tactical resource, while health is your "how far can I journey?" resource. Thus mana is now regenerating, and you never need to go out of your way to get more of it. Spell scrolls have mostly been removed (and the ability to craft them has been completely removed), and the spell scrolls we took away are now available as spellgems instead.
For most of the lower-power spells in the game, which is most of the spells in general that exist right now, this system plus cooldowns is all that is really needed. For the ultra-spells that we'll add later, they'd have additional tactical or strategic penalties for use, such as blighting the land or giving new buffs to the enemies they are used upon, etc. There's a lot of flexibility in what we can do, on a per-spell basis, to make them interesting and balanced.
THAT said, the spell balance as it is currently implemented is surely not perfect. This is something we will be wanting feedback on, particularly later in the week as we get through our power-coding phase. You'll notice that as part of this changeup, ride the lightning and storm dash have actually been nerfed a bit, now costing a lot more mana -- so you can use them perfectly well for navigating around many hazards, but using them during battle when you want your mana for offensive spells is going to be properly challenging to do.
Down To One Kind Of Crafting
So, as mentioned above, spellscroll crafting is gone -- though from time to time you'll still find spell scrolls like elusion or glpyh transfer, etc, in stash rooms.
The outfitter crafting is also now gone, and so when you need a snowsuit or heatsuit or wooden platforms, you'll actually need to go to the stash rooms and scavenge for them, as well. Similarly, the upcoming crests and spellshaping gems (that go with crests) will no longer be craftable either, but will instead be exploration rewards.
We basically realized that if we were going to have loot drops and exploration rewards that were notable, that we needed to make those things not just be craftable. Otherwise they're kind of lame as something to find! And at the same time, it was a great chance to simplify down to one kind of crafting instead of 5-7 kinds of crafting. Less overwhelming for new players, while not actually not removing any content -- just shifting around how and when you gain access to that content.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted last week, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming through last week and this week. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by this Wednesday or Thursday, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
A Valley Without Wind Voted Into IndieDB's IOTY 2011 Top 100
Yesterday we received the awesome news that A Valley Without Wind has been voted into the top 100 of IndieDB's Indie of the Year 2011, and is onto the second round. The game can be found in the "upcoming games" section under the "adventure" category.We're both excited and humbled to still be in the running alongside some very fantastic/popular indie titles. The next step is the top ten. Competition may be stiff, but we plan on doing everything in our power to make a run and be there for the last leg of the event.
There's just over a week to garner as many votes as we can for AVWW. If you're interested in voting for the game, head over to our IndieDB page, scroll down to the "Top 100 Game of 2011" section, and click on the red button that states "vote for this game."
Thanks in advance to all who do cast their vote in our direction, and/or help get the word out for us. On top of that, perpetual thanks for the continued support received from our community. It's extremely appreciated, and never ceases to amaze us.
Time left to vote:
Friday, December 9, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.548, "Power Coding Round 2: New Health Subsystem," Released!
This one is another major game-flow changer. First off, I should note that there are also some important bugfixes in here, mostly relating to multiplayer. That's why we went ahead and pushed this out in the middle of the day, rather than just waiting until later in the day when the rest of our new stuff would be ready for one larger release.
At any rate, looking past the bugfixes, the really big game-flow changer in this version is the new health subsystem.
The Old Health System And Its Problems
In the old model, you had a finite amount of health and that health could be replenished when you used a health potion or got minor floating health drops from enemies. You could carry infinite health potions around with you, and upon death one of those potions would automatically heal you to prevent death. This meant that the only way to have death even possible was to make a long cooldown on healing: if you died twice within a 15-20 second span, you were dead for good regardless of how much healing you had on hand.
That old model grew up organically from a lot of various design decisions that ultimately came together in a displeasing way. The old system had a lot of problems, such as an inability for players to really accurately tell how low on health they really were -- the health bar was just part of the "how long can I live" equation. And just the basic fact of juggling all those potions was annoying. Not to mention difficult to balance, although the balance wasn't horrible.
The New Health System
The new model we're using for health is something that we arrived at through much discussion with players and our staff in several threads in our brainstorming subforum. Our goal was to create a system that was simpler, less fiddly, and easier to balance... while still maintaining the general feel of what we'd been trying to do in the first place.
To that end, health potions and scrolls have both been removed from the game. At the most basic level, you have a health bar, and as you explore around and kill monsters, they will drop health restoration floaty-things a lot more commonly. You can also go back to town to get healed back to 100%. At the most basic level, that's all there is, and the game thus uses health firmly as the "how far can I travel in one expedition" limiter.
That's not really enough on its own, of course -- there has to be a better way to have more health stores with you on an expedition, so that you can make a more-arduous-than-average journey or prepare for a big boss fight. In Metroid games, that's usually done via the Health Tanks idea, whereas in most RPGs or adventure games it's done via healing items that you carry with you. For a lot of various reasons including HUD considerations and the extremely large inventory in this game, we went with something closer to the Metroid model -- so there still aren't any healing items that you can carry with you and use in the field.
Instead what we have now are Vitality Stones, which you can collect in the field as you explore, and use in town. Using 2 of these stones causes your maximum health to double -- kind of like adding an energy tank in Metroid. Then using 4 of the stones makes your max health 300% of the base max health. That pattern continues: 8 vitality stones make for 400%, 16 makes for 500%, 32 makes for 600%, 64 makes for 800%, and so on.
There is no limit to how buffed you can make your max health at the moment, but there is a catch: every time your health drops the equivalent of 100% of your base max, your current max shrinks by that same amount. So if your current max is 400%, and your health drops to 299%, then your current max drops to 300%. This was originally suggested by Hearteater in the forums, and then expanded upon somewhat, and the idea is quite clever because it makes for interesting decisions on how and in what quantities you use your vitality stones.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted yesterday, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming in a week span or so. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by the 15th or 16th, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
At any rate, looking past the bugfixes, the really big game-flow changer in this version is the new health subsystem.
The Old Health System And Its Problems
In the old model, you had a finite amount of health and that health could be replenished when you used a health potion or got minor floating health drops from enemies. You could carry infinite health potions around with you, and upon death one of those potions would automatically heal you to prevent death. This meant that the only way to have death even possible was to make a long cooldown on healing: if you died twice within a 15-20 second span, you were dead for good regardless of how much healing you had on hand.
That old model grew up organically from a lot of various design decisions that ultimately came together in a displeasing way. The old system had a lot of problems, such as an inability for players to really accurately tell how low on health they really were -- the health bar was just part of the "how long can I live" equation. And just the basic fact of juggling all those potions was annoying. Not to mention difficult to balance, although the balance wasn't horrible.
The New Health System
The new model we're using for health is something that we arrived at through much discussion with players and our staff in several threads in our brainstorming subforum. Our goal was to create a system that was simpler, less fiddly, and easier to balance... while still maintaining the general feel of what we'd been trying to do in the first place.
To that end, health potions and scrolls have both been removed from the game. At the most basic level, you have a health bar, and as you explore around and kill monsters, they will drop health restoration floaty-things a lot more commonly. You can also go back to town to get healed back to 100%. At the most basic level, that's all there is, and the game thus uses health firmly as the "how far can I travel in one expedition" limiter.
That's not really enough on its own, of course -- there has to be a better way to have more health stores with you on an expedition, so that you can make a more-arduous-than-average journey or prepare for a big boss fight. In Metroid games, that's usually done via the Health Tanks idea, whereas in most RPGs or adventure games it's done via healing items that you carry with you. For a lot of various reasons including HUD considerations and the extremely large inventory in this game, we went with something closer to the Metroid model -- so there still aren't any healing items that you can carry with you and use in the field.
Instead what we have now are Vitality Stones, which you can collect in the field as you explore, and use in town. Using 2 of these stones causes your maximum health to double -- kind of like adding an energy tank in Metroid. Then using 4 of the stones makes your max health 300% of the base max health. That pattern continues: 8 vitality stones make for 400%, 16 makes for 500%, 32 makes for 600%, 64 makes for 800%, and so on.
There is no limit to how buffed you can make your max health at the moment, but there is a catch: every time your health drops the equivalent of 100% of your base max, your current max shrinks by that same amount. So if your current max is 400%, and your health drops to 299%, then your current max drops to 300%. This was originally suggested by Hearteater in the forums, and then expanded upon somewhat, and the idea is quite clever because it makes for interesting decisions on how and in what quantities you use your vitality stones.
Still Powercoding, Balance Still Might Be Wonky In The Short Term
As noted yesterday, Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming in a week span or so. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray during that time, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by the 15th or 16th, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.547, "Power Coding Round 1," Released!
There is nothing subtle or incremental about this one. All the stats for characters and monsters have been reworked internally, and as part of that we've redone the general balance and flow of combat. Enemy spells tend to be a lot slower now, but more plentiful and more frequent. Trash mobs have a lot of health and now do substantial damage, but there are fewer of them. And did we mention the eagles? Yeah, the most-hated enemy should be a lot more fun and palatable for folks now.
Similarly, the terrain itself has been tightened, so there is less wandering through uninteresting space, and so there are fewer same-y buildings, and so there is less empty sky for espers and amoebas and bats to wander off into. The result is really a different feel in the exterior areas, accentuating the existing differences in each region type through making them all more focused in general.
We also changed the multiplayer synchronization model around a ton, so now enemy positions and enemy shots will be synchronous between clients. Let us know if you run into any issues with this, but based on the reaction to our other model this should be way more popular with players. The one downside is that this does mean that sometimes enemy positions will need to correct themselves, and right now that means the enemy just jumps to the side and that might make you miss a shot against them. But we'll have smoothing for that later, and the really good news is that still your shots and enemy shots never will have jumps of that nature. Multiplayer details have been updated here.
There are also a variety of general bugfixes in this version aside from the above, and there's a new way that enemies flash when you hit them with a spell. There are also some new room maps by Josh, and he's created a new wiki article explaining the maps for new players.
Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming in the next week or so. This is the first batch of them, but there will be more batches as we can break it up. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray for a week or so, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by the end of next week, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Similarly, the terrain itself has been tightened, so there is less wandering through uninteresting space, and so there are fewer same-y buildings, and so there is less empty sky for espers and amoebas and bats to wander off into. The result is really a different feel in the exterior areas, accentuating the existing differences in each region type through making them all more focused in general.
We also changed the multiplayer synchronization model around a ton, so now enemy positions and enemy shots will be synchronous between clients. Let us know if you run into any issues with this, but based on the reaction to our other model this should be way more popular with players. The one downside is that this does mean that sometimes enemy positions will need to correct themselves, and right now that means the enemy just jumps to the side and that might make you miss a shot against them. But we'll have smoothing for that later, and the really good news is that still your shots and enemy shots never will have jumps of that nature. Multiplayer details have been updated here.
There are also a variety of general bugfixes in this version aside from the above, and there's a new way that enemies flash when you hit them with a spell. There are also some new room maps by Josh, and he's created a new wiki article explaining the maps for new players.
Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming in the next week or so. This is the first batch of them, but there will be more batches as we can break it up. Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray for a week or so, in terms of general balance and such. We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time. The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by the end of next week, though.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
AVWW: Multiplayer Public Alpha, Brainstorming Subforum, And IOTY 2011
Arcen Games is pleased to pass along new information regarding our procedurally-generated, post-apocalyptic 2D sidescrolling action/adventure title A Valley Without Wind.
The game has reached yet another major milestone as the multiplayer component has entered alpha and for the first time is publicly available for testing. For those interested in opting into co-operative play in the same server/world with up to a few dozen other players (perhaps even more), head over to the AVWW multiplayer wiki and check out the FAQ section along with other related notes, specs, and such. Arcen CEO and head programmer Chris Park chats about what's coming up for all the aforementioned as well in the latest post on his development blog.
We're also excited to have the game participating in IndieDB's Indie of the Year 2011 competition. To celebrate the constant support we and many other indies receive from the IndieDB community, we'll be holding game giveaways that people can enter into via the comments section of an upcoming/aptly-titled news post on the site. The news post will go live sometime Thursday evening, and drawings will take place from then on throughout the weekend. Supporters, well-wishers, curious parties, etc. are encouraged to stop by, enter the giveaway drawing, and vote for AVWW if so inclined.
The full version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC/Mac for pre-order at 50% off the launch price during early beta, with customers gaining 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. A demo is available for taking a free look around, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only restriction being a cap when civilization level six is reached.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is still very much in development. It continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in 2012. 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 recently opened brainstorming subforum and join in on the various design discussions. Additionally, anyone looking for hosted servers to jump onto and play with others are advised to stay tuned to the player-created "post when you host" thread on 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 or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
The game has reached yet another major milestone as the multiplayer component has entered alpha and for the first time is publicly available for testing. For those interested in opting into co-operative play in the same server/world with up to a few dozen other players (perhaps even more), head over to the AVWW multiplayer wiki and check out the FAQ section along with other related notes, specs, and such. Arcen CEO and head programmer Chris Park chats about what's coming up for all the aforementioned as well in the latest post on his development blog.
We're also excited to have the game participating in IndieDB's Indie of the Year 2011 competition. To celebrate the constant support we and many other indies receive from the IndieDB community, we'll be holding game giveaways that people can enter into via the comments section of an upcoming/aptly-titled news post on the site. The news post will go live sometime Thursday evening, and drawings will take place from then on throughout the weekend. Supporters, well-wishers, curious parties, etc. are encouraged to stop by, enter the giveaway drawing, and vote for AVWW if so inclined.
The full version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC/Mac for pre-order at 50% off the launch price during early beta, with customers gaining 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. A demo is available for taking a free look around, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only restriction being a cap when civilization level six is reached.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is still very much in development. It continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in 2012. 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 recently opened brainstorming subforum and join in on the various design discussions. Additionally, anyone looking for hosted servers to jump onto and play with others are advised to stay tuned to the player-created "post when you host" thread on 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 or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
Monday, December 5, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.546, "Multiplayer Fixes Round 1," Released!
This one has a whole list of fixes for multiplayer AVWW, to get rid of most of the small annoyances that have been reported. In other news, we have plans for how to deal with the one major annoyance in the next few days, so stay tuned on that. But we did want to give an update on what our plans are.
If you've not yet played multiplayer AVWW, here's a wiki article to explain all the ins and outs of it. We really appreciate all the feedback we've gotten so far, and I think we're heading in a direction now that folks will be pleased with.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
If you've not yet played multiplayer AVWW, here's a wiki article to explain all the ins and outs of it. We really appreciate all the feedback we've gotten so far, and I think we're heading in a direction now that folks will be pleased with.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Friday, December 2, 2011
AVWW Beta 0.545, "Multiplayer Public Alpha (Opt-In)," Released!
This one has been a long time coming -- in the works since October 7th, in fact. Ever since that date, Keith has been working almost solely on getting multiplayer up and going, and so that's caused basically nothing to happen with the macro game parts of the game for that large swathe of beta. The last time we had any form of functioning multiplayer for this game was back in March, when the game was still top-down, and despite having been coding to a solid multiplayer spec all this time, it's been a gargantuan task for Keith to get things all up and going to a point where we could show this publicly at all.
But today's the day when you can opt in to testing out multiplayer if you are inclined to do so! Details on how exactly that works, plus known issues and all that sort of fun stuff, to follow below.
The Next Phase Of AVWW Development Drawing Near
Before I get to that stuff, though, one more note: the brainstorming subforum for AVWW has been abuzz all week, and there are absolutely tons and tons of changes coming to the game as a result of that. I decided to take most of this week as a design week for my own side of things, because the core parts of the game have matured to the point where I could now step back and look at how they all fit together and decide better how to achieve the immutable design goals for the game.
The result is going to be a very different sort of game than what is currently implemented, but the prevailing opinion on the forums seems to be "awesome, that's a lot more like what I was picturing when you were talking about the game in the first place!" Which seems to be a good sign. In a lot of respects, I view this like the shift from AI War 1.0 to 2.0, or AI War 3.x to 4.x. Same core game, same design philosophy, but some things cut and a lot of stuff added, and so much more refined.
It's pretty much all there on the brainstorming subforum if you're curious about what, specificially, is going to be changing. Feel free to weigh in!
This isn't going to be affecting the pricing of preorders, just to set your mind at ease. We're still considering this "early beta" for now. So it's still a really great time to get into the game early, if you like that sort of thing!
All About The Multiplayer Alpha
This one takes a whole wiki article to explain all the ins and outs of, although there's only a few key parts you'll really need to read to get started in the alpha. But we figured that since we're doing some unusual things, and since people were likely to have questions just in general, that we'd make a more inclusive document that has everything and which we could update over time.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
But today's the day when you can opt in to testing out multiplayer if you are inclined to do so! Details on how exactly that works, plus known issues and all that sort of fun stuff, to follow below.
The Next Phase Of AVWW Development Drawing Near
Before I get to that stuff, though, one more note: the brainstorming subforum for AVWW has been abuzz all week, and there are absolutely tons and tons of changes coming to the game as a result of that. I decided to take most of this week as a design week for my own side of things, because the core parts of the game have matured to the point where I could now step back and look at how they all fit together and decide better how to achieve the immutable design goals for the game.
The result is going to be a very different sort of game than what is currently implemented, but the prevailing opinion on the forums seems to be "awesome, that's a lot more like what I was picturing when you were talking about the game in the first place!" Which seems to be a good sign. In a lot of respects, I view this like the shift from AI War 1.0 to 2.0, or AI War 3.x to 4.x. Same core game, same design philosophy, but some things cut and a lot of stuff added, and so much more refined.
It's pretty much all there on the brainstorming subforum if you're curious about what, specificially, is going to be changing. Feel free to weigh in!
This isn't going to be affecting the pricing of preorders, just to set your mind at ease. We're still considering this "early beta" for now. So it's still a really great time to get into the game early, if you like that sort of thing!
All About The Multiplayer Alpha
This one takes a whole wiki article to explain all the ins and outs of, although there's only a few key parts you'll really need to read to get started in the alpha. But we figured that since we're doing some unusual things, and since people were likely to have questions just in general, that we'd make a more inclusive document that has everything and which we could update over time.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.