This one includes some key enhancements to the base game we wanted to get in with enough testing time left before 6.0.
Players have been telling us for a while that the AI's Special Forces units were basically... irrelevant. They used to be far more significant but many changes over the years have resulted in a mechanic that just doesn't make a lot of difference in most games. So we rewired it.
Now the galaxy's AI Special Forces will act as a sort of defensive response force, pushing back whenever you attack a planet the AI cares about (which is not all of them). In testing this produced a pretty cool feeling of maneuver and counter-maneuver, but as always we'll really see if it works out when the players get their hands on it. I think it's a step in the right direction, at least.
Speaking of AI defense, here's another thing the players have been asking for: now each AI planet picks three typs of ships to "focus" on when spawning reinforcements. In one sense this reduces the distinct number of ships you're likely to encounter in large numbers in the midgame (in the early game they still start with the same distribution as before), but actually increases the gameplay variety as each planet's mix will be different.
Mere balance changes seem mundane compared to mechanics changes like the above, but there are some pretty important ones to starships and the triangle: The six "combat" starship lines have been given another balance pass. K costs are now more in line with what you're getting, notably. And the fighter is now faster than the bomber was (and the bomber slightly slower) and has more of a role on the attack due to several guardians being switched to hull types that are vulnerable to the fighter. All in all, none of the balance changes are earthshaking, but they're one more step in the right direction.
The release has a couple bugfixes, as well.
Update: 5.075 hotfix is out to fix an array-index-out-of-bounds error in what I did to the AI reinforcements logic. Also made the focused-reinforcements logic apply to initial ship seeding, which should make at least one player happy.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
AI War Beta 5.072-5.073 "A Revised Experience" Released!
This one adds another nebula scenario that the game can pick to throw at you. "Throw" is somewhat literal, as you will see. Also added some more champion toys to the potential-scenario-reward toybox, and the last modular fortress (Zenith), for your AI-smashing pleasure.
More important than another scenario (though that is cool) are several important changes to the champion experience:
1) Nebula faction ships are now more focused on their jobs (as they see them, you may disagree).
2) Hull-sizes and hull-races are now granted such that you never have a larger hull of one race than another, so the choice of what hull to use is much more a matter of what you prefer than how the dice rolled.
3) XP gain is now way less based on what you kill in the nebulae (which was encouraging farming) and more based on how well you do in the scenarios.
And there's some other changes and fixes, as usual. All in the notes :)
Update: 5.073 hotfix is out to fix the zenith modular fortress trying to use the wrong far zoom icon.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
More important than another scenario (though that is cool) are several important changes to the champion experience:
1) Nebula faction ships are now more focused on their jobs (as they see them, you may disagree).
2) Hull-sizes and hull-races are now granted such that you never have a larger hull of one race than another, so the choice of what hull to use is much more a matter of what you prefer than how the dice rolled.
3) XP gain is now way less based on what you kill in the nebulae (which was encouraging farming) and more based on how well you do in the scenarios.
And there's some other changes and fixes, as usual. All in the notes :)
Update: 5.073 hotfix is out to fix the zenith modular fortress trying to use the wrong far zoom icon.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Friday, August 24, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.207 "Double Lightning" Released!
This one is the next in our series of adding a new spell and other new tweaks each week while the game is undergoing its art revamp for the next few months.
There are really a lot of good things in this one. For one, the new spell is just made of awesomesauce: it's easily my favorite spell ever, just for the visual effect alone. But it's also really fun to catch multiple enemies in your cloud of lightning when you can. zebramatt suggested the idea as a fire spell, but since other players were pointing out the lack of air-element spells I thought this one would do well to fit both needs at once.
Next up we have yet another 100 rooms thanks to Benmiff. He. Is. A. Machine. It's no question now that well over half of the room maps in the game are now created by him; it might be closer to 2/3 of them now, I'm not sure. And we had hundreds to start with!
The name "double lightning" for the post comes about because of Lightning Storm (the new spell mentioned above) plus lot of heavy changes to Lightning Rocket. Mainly it now moves way faster and drains the mana faster also. That makes it sort of like a super mega jump, rather than a slow ride upwards. Boy oh boy, is that fun. Ulrox really had a great idea with those changes, it's almost like a new spell.
Next up are a variety of bugfixes and balance tweaks, the majority of which seem to either involve Pyrrhic or Misery or both. Huge thanks to both of them, and all the other players involved as well. The gift-giving interface is now way less hard to find as part of these changes, and perhaps what might be the most significant change of this release despite all the great stuff above:
More to come next week. 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.
There are really a lot of good things in this one. For one, the new spell is just made of awesomesauce: it's easily my favorite spell ever, just for the visual effect alone. But it's also really fun to catch multiple enemies in your cloud of lightning when you can. zebramatt suggested the idea as a fire spell, but since other players were pointing out the lack of air-element spells I thought this one would do well to fit both needs at once.
Next up we have yet another 100 rooms thanks to Benmiff. He. Is. A. Machine. It's no question now that well over half of the room maps in the game are now created by him; it might be closer to 2/3 of them now, I'm not sure. And we had hundreds to start with!
The name "double lightning" for the post comes about because of Lightning Storm (the new spell mentioned above) plus lot of heavy changes to Lightning Rocket. Mainly it now moves way faster and drains the mana faster also. That makes it sort of like a super mega jump, rather than a slow ride upwards. Boy oh boy, is that fun. Ulrox really had a great idea with those changes, it's almost like a new spell.
Next up are a variety of bugfixes and balance tweaks, the majority of which seem to either involve Pyrrhic or Misery or both. Huge thanks to both of them, and all the other players involved as well. The gift-giving interface is now way less hard to find as part of these changes, and perhaps what might be the most significant change of this release despite all the great stuff above:
The percentages of what seeds in stash rooms is now vastly improved. The little pointless bits of shards, and the extra enchant-charge containers (both of which can be found elsewhere plenty easily) no longer seed. The overall density of the good items has more than doubled as part of these changes
More to come next week. 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, August 23, 2012
AI War Beta 5.070 "The Once And Fortress King" Released!
This one adds two new bonus ship types: the Zenith Reprocessor, and the much-anticipated Zenith Siege Engine. The latter has to stay immobile for 15 seconds before firing, but it hits like a truck once it does. A truck loaded with plasma torpedoes, that is.
Another long-requested change, from the top of the mantis voting page: the Clusters map type. In a way, it organizes the galaxy into 2 to 6 smaller units, each of which only has a few connections to other clusters.
The name of this release, however, comes from the new AI Type: the Fortress King. Fortress Baron not enough for you? Well, here you go. There's a small mercy included: AI planets bordering your homeworld (unless they're somehow AI homeworlds) will only have the normal command stations. All the other Fortress King planets will have mammoth modular fortresses (that eat bombers for breakfast) that function as command stations. Each one rolls its modular armament separately from a set of templates, so it adds a bit of variety to how your fleet will be (repeatedly) eaten.
Several other fixes and changes, as usual. I'd intended to get the next nebula scenario into this release but I'm probably going to need to divert to helping Chris with a particular subsystem of Shattered Haven, so I wanted to get this into player hands now rather than later :)
Update: 5.071 hotfix is out to fix several bugs with the Fortress King AI type. Also fixed some other issues and packed in some further changes to CPAs and some funny business involving barracks.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Another long-requested change, from the top of the mantis voting page: the Clusters map type. In a way, it organizes the galaxy into 2 to 6 smaller units, each of which only has a few connections to other clusters.
The name of this release, however, comes from the new AI Type: the Fortress King. Fortress Baron not enough for you? Well, here you go. There's a small mercy included: AI planets bordering your homeworld (unless they're somehow AI homeworlds) will only have the normal command stations. All the other Fortress King planets will have mammoth modular fortresses (that eat bombers for breakfast) that function as command stations. Each one rolls its modular armament separately from a set of templates, so it adds a bit of variety to how your fleet will be (repeatedly) eaten.
Several other fixes and changes, as usual. I'd intended to get the next nebula scenario into this release but I'm probably going to need to divert to helping Chris with a particular subsystem of Shattered Haven, so I wanted to get this into player hands now rather than later :)
Update: 5.071 hotfix is out to fix several bugs with the Fortress King AI type. Also fixed some other issues and packed in some further changes to CPAs and some funny business involving barracks.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Arcen Games Heading To PAX Prime With Indie Mega Booth
We had a lot of fun exhibiting at PAX East earlier this year in Boston. So much so we decided we just couldn't pass up the chance to do the same at PAX Prime next week in Seattle. So if you're attending, keep an open spot in your schedule to stop by! (Or even better, give us a heads-up ahead of time* to ensure I haven't run off to lunch.)
We'll be one of the 30 developers making up the incredibly amazing Indie Mega Booth (just look at all those notable developers and good games). We got to know a lot of these guys at PAX East, and we're excited to be a part of the massive collection of indie game exhibitors this time around. Specifically, I'll be located in booth #868 sharing space with the awesome folks of 24 Caret Games--developers of PS3 title Retro/Grade which just arrived this week on PSN.
As noted in the trailer below, A Valley Without Wind will be playable. There may be some new artwork stuff to showoff there as well. I'll be chatting up the Ancient Shadows expansion with those who want to talk about it, but I doubt anyone would get much out of a short floor demo for a game like AI War. We're also planning some giveaways of our titles both on-sight and online; plus we may have something else to debut. Not sure yet, we'll see.
On top of that, I'll be heading up the 'Open Development for Indies: Why Cooperative Trumps Competitive' panel with a handful of other indie devs in the Serpent Theater, 3:00 PM on Sunday (September 2nd). If you're interested in indie development at all, or if you just want to say hi, make sure not to miss us in the afternoon during the final day of the conference.
If you want updates on what we and all the other devs in the mega booth are up to, or if you just want to support us all in general, the Indie Mega Booth Facebook and Twitter stuff is a go.
9 days and counting!
Here's the latest coverage coming in, mostly from the AVWW Steam sale (now concluded) and art update:
Joystiq -- A Valley Without Wind's impending art revamp in version 1.3, sale now
VG247 -- A Valley Without Wind 50% off on Steam, headed for graphical overhaul
Co-Optimus -- A Valley Without Wind On Sale at 50% Off
PCGamersN -- A Valley Without Wind patch 1.206 “Watery Warp” released
DealSpwn -- A Valley Without Wind Getting Massive Art Overhaul
TheBitBag -- A Valley Without Wind 50% off on Steam, major graphic overhaul incoming
GameZone -- A Valley Without Wind getting graphical redesign
HardReset -- A Valley Without Wind Review
DealSpwn -- AI War Ancient Shadows DLC Enters Public Beta
Forum User Hartmann -- Let's Play A Valley Without Wind! (A Gainax Production)
*That goes for both press and attendees. If you happen to be media and are interested in our Indie Mega Booth press kit, head here.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
AI War Beta 5.068-5.069 "Old Enmity Reclaimed" Released!
This one adds another scenario that can be seeded in a nebula. The usual goes with it: more champion hulls and module lines are possible as rewards. There's also a couple new abilities that can be unlocked through nebula rewards.
A few important balance changes were made to recently-added stuff: Tackle Drone Launchers got nerfed heavily. Scapegoats got something of a nerf, but the higher-mark versions now actually deliver more of their unique utility than the first mark, rather than less.
Also added keybinds to make champion direct-ability-use easier, now that it's a thing. Basically Ctrl+Q to use your first ability, Ctrl+W to use your second, and so on, though you can only get 2 on any one champion right now. If you prefer the Q,W,E,R (without holding Ctrl) method, you can change the binding and it will only apply when you have a single champion selected so it won't interfere with the normal zoom-functions of those keys at any other time.
There's also a few other miscellaneous changes and fixes, as usual.
Update: 5.069 hotfix is out to fix a bug where only the most-recently-added scenario was being seeded in nebulae. What do you mean, "did you leave testing code in, Keith?" Have I ever done such a thing? ... um, yea. Anyway, a few other important fixes in there (like preventing minor-faction ships with plasma-siege shots from "helpfully" killing forcefield-protected AI command stations for you) and a long-needed buff to CPAs on higher difficulties, though we probably aren't done on that front.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
A few important balance changes were made to recently-added stuff: Tackle Drone Launchers got nerfed heavily. Scapegoats got something of a nerf, but the higher-mark versions now actually deliver more of their unique utility than the first mark, rather than less.
Also added keybinds to make champion direct-ability-use easier, now that it's a thing. Basically Ctrl+Q to use your first ability, Ctrl+W to use your second, and so on, though you can only get 2 on any one champion right now. If you prefer the Q,W,E,R (without holding Ctrl) method, you can change the binding and it will only apply when you have a single champion selected so it won't interfere with the normal zoom-functions of those keys at any other time.
There's also a few other miscellaneous changes and fixes, as usual.
Update: 5.069 hotfix is out to fix a bug where only the most-recently-added scenario was being seeded in nebulae. What do you mean, "did you leave testing code in, Keith?" Have I ever done such a thing? ... um, yea. Anyway, a few other important fixes in there (like preventing minor-faction ships with plasma-siege shots from "helpfully" killing forcefield-protected AI command stations for you) and a long-needed buff to CPAs on higher difficulties, though we probably aren't done on that front.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
AI War Beta 5.064-5.066 "Abilities Unlocked" Released!
This one adds two more bonus ship types for the Ancient Shadows expansion: the Neinzul Scapegoat and the Spire Railcluster. The Scapegoat has a one-shot version of the Regenerator Golem's ability (only works on fleet ships) and I expect to hear tales of absurd exploits and thus have to nerf it, but have fun figuring them out ;) The Railcluster isn't as unique as the Scapegoat or the others added thus far for AS (the medic frigate and the tackle drone launcher) but in another way it is unique: it's the first "Spire fleet ship" that's purely oriented towards straight-up combat. It shreds little stuff particularly.
If you play versus the new "Heroic" AI Type, expect to see some now-familiar toys getting thrown back in your face. The AI's champions are much simpler than human ones (no nebula travel, XP gain, etc) but they come with nasty modules (from a randomly picked template, for variety) and should spice things up a bit.
Speaking of champions, I'd meant to have another scenario ready for this release but other champion-related issues took priority. Specifically:
The interface for managing the modules has been pretty schizophrenic with both the normal build-queue method and the specialized "ship design window" method because the champion's situation is so unique. So now it just directs you to the ship-design-window method for champions, with a settings toggle for getting the old build-queue method back if you really want it. Feedback on this would be quite welcome.
Further, the interface for spending unlock points was... unwieldy. So now the ship design tab doesn't try to do any of that, and that function is now performed by the "Champion Unlocks" tab of the same window. Personally I think it looks pretty nice, but it is still a user interface designed by an engineer, so your mileage may vary ;)
Finally, another tab has been added to the normal HUD you see when you have a champion selected: in addition to the "MODS" tab (which used to hold the build queue stuff and now is just a shortcut to ship-design) you now have an "ABILITY" tab. You'll only see one ability there right now (a neinzul champion gets a different one) but the idea is that they spend a newly-added champion resource: Shadow charge. It was part of the original design but I'd gone back and forth on whether it really made sense to have directly-triggered abilities in this game. Since then player feedback has made it clear that it really would help make the champions feel more interesting to use, so here we go.
Oh, and there's several bugfixes and balance changes, but you probably already guessed that from previous releases :)
Update: 5.065 hotfix is out to fix a bug where Shadow Charge was accumulating without cap, and a few nasty UI bugs with the ship-design tab. Also revised the bomber-drone balance change.
Update: 5.066 hotfix is out to fix a UI bug when trying to open another player's champion in ship-design. Would generally only come up in singleplyer games with multiple champions, but it's pretty annoying in that case.
Update: 5.067 hotfix is out to fix a bug where nebulae past the third or fourth were not generating scenarios, and a few other bugfix/balance changes.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
If you play versus the new "Heroic" AI Type, expect to see some now-familiar toys getting thrown back in your face. The AI's champions are much simpler than human ones (no nebula travel, XP gain, etc) but they come with nasty modules (from a randomly picked template, for variety) and should spice things up a bit.
Speaking of champions, I'd meant to have another scenario ready for this release but other champion-related issues took priority. Specifically:
The interface for managing the modules has been pretty schizophrenic with both the normal build-queue method and the specialized "ship design window" method because the champion's situation is so unique. So now it just directs you to the ship-design-window method for champions, with a settings toggle for getting the old build-queue method back if you really want it. Feedback on this would be quite welcome.
Further, the interface for spending unlock points was... unwieldy. So now the ship design tab doesn't try to do any of that, and that function is now performed by the "Champion Unlocks" tab of the same window. Personally I think it looks pretty nice, but it is still a user interface designed by an engineer, so your mileage may vary ;)
Finally, another tab has been added to the normal HUD you see when you have a champion selected: in addition to the "MODS" tab (which used to hold the build queue stuff and now is just a shortcut to ship-design) you now have an "ABILITY" tab. You'll only see one ability there right now (a neinzul champion gets a different one) but the idea is that they spend a newly-added champion resource: Shadow charge. It was part of the original design but I'd gone back and forth on whether it really made sense to have directly-triggered abilities in this game. Since then player feedback has made it clear that it really would help make the champions feel more interesting to use, so here we go.
Oh, and there's several bugfixes and balance changes, but you probably already guessed that from previous releases :)
Update: 5.065 hotfix is out to fix a bug where Shadow Charge was accumulating without cap, and a few nasty UI bugs with the ship-design tab. Also revised the bomber-drone balance change.
Update: 5.066 hotfix is out to fix a UI bug when trying to open another player's champion in ship-design. Would generally only come up in singleplyer games with multiple champions, but it's pretty annoying in that case.
Update: 5.067 hotfix is out to fix a bug where nebulae past the third or fourth were not generating scenarios, and a few other bugfix/balance changes.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Steam Daily Deal: A Valley Without Wind 50% Off Today Only
On the heels of A Valley Without Wind's latest post-release beta update Steam is offering the game at 50% off today only as a Daily Deal. Meaning you can pickup both the individual game and/or the four-pack for half the price!If you've been out of the loop for a bit, AVWW is undergoing a major art rework that will be offered later this year as a free update for all owners of the game. So if you've been on the fence, now's a great chance to dive in on the cheap; especially when you couple the upcoming overhaul with the improvements/additions already made from 1.0 to 1.2.
Offer ends tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific Time. A PC demo is available on the game's Steam page, while both PC and Mac demos are offered on our website.
AVWW Post-Release 1.206 "Watery Warp" Released!
This one is the next in our series of adding a new spell and other new tweaks each week while the game is undergoing its art revamp for the next few months.
Since I've been working on porting Shattered Haven to the new engine, plus working on getting the AVWW art revamp project off the ground, that's really been quite a time drain for me so far this month. Thus I missed doing an update last week, and we have an extra-awesome one this week instead.
Included here are a new spell scroll, a new guardian power scroll, and some refinements to how you get guardian power scrolls. These are pretty cool, because it makes most of the guardian power scrolls easier to find via secret missions. And both the new guardian power scroll as well as the spell scroll are centered around making it easier for you to cycle out missions that you don't like, to instead get missions that you do like.
There are also changes to make mood gifts for survivors easier to find, and the game is now more explicit about warning you that you'll need to enlist the aid of your survivors to take down the overlord when this is the case. In the past sometimes that could go unnoticed until it was time for the showdown, and then it was tedious to try to get all your survivors updated at once (of course you can just down the citybuilding difficulty if you find yourself in that situation, but better is to have the importance of that activity clearer earlier).
We added another 100 player-made maps, and we also made it so that the "only works during the day/night" modifier for spells is no longer an all-or-nothing affair. Instead it just reduces your spells' effectiveness during the offending period, which should be a lot more palatable.
Lastly, the new spell that was added this week is called Water Dash, and it lets you run at a higher speed in water while also floating upwards in the water. That's a pretty cool addition especially for the ocean areas, since this effectively lets you swim upwards at certain angles rather than having to always use crates or wooden platforms.
More to come next week. 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.
Since I've been working on porting Shattered Haven to the new engine, plus working on getting the AVWW art revamp project off the ground, that's really been quite a time drain for me so far this month. Thus I missed doing an update last week, and we have an extra-awesome one this week instead.
Included here are a new spell scroll, a new guardian power scroll, and some refinements to how you get guardian power scrolls. These are pretty cool, because it makes most of the guardian power scrolls easier to find via secret missions. And both the new guardian power scroll as well as the spell scroll are centered around making it easier for you to cycle out missions that you don't like, to instead get missions that you do like.
There are also changes to make mood gifts for survivors easier to find, and the game is now more explicit about warning you that you'll need to enlist the aid of your survivors to take down the overlord when this is the case. In the past sometimes that could go unnoticed until it was time for the showdown, and then it was tedious to try to get all your survivors updated at once (of course you can just down the citybuilding difficulty if you find yourself in that situation, but better is to have the importance of that activity clearer earlier).
We added another 100 player-made maps, and we also made it so that the "only works during the day/night" modifier for spells is no longer an all-or-nothing affair. Instead it just reduces your spells' effectiveness during the offending period, which should be a lot more palatable.
Lastly, the new spell that was added this week is called Water Dash, and it lets you run at a higher speed in water while also floating upwards in the water. That's a pretty cool addition especially for the ocean areas, since this effectively lets you swim upwards at certain angles rather than having to always use crates or wooden platforms.
More to come next week. 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.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
AI War Beta 5.061 "*Tackled*, Medic!" Released!
This one adds the first two bonus ship types of the Ancient Shadows expansion: the Zenith Medic Frigate (from one of RCIX's ideas) and the Tackle Drone Launcher (we invented that pain ourselves). Both boldly fill roles where no fleet ship has filled before. Particularly the "push the enemy's ships around like a jerk" role.
This update also adds a third nebula scenario, another step towards the kind of variety we want for champion "offroad" gameplay. This scenario introduces a second Neinzul splinter faction, but it takes a bit of a backseat to the player in this scenario. 5 more champion hull types have been added, including the next size-step up from what's been available previously. There's also 4 new scenario-unlocked module lines for champions available, all of them at least a bit off the wall.
Oh, beating the new scenario can also unlock the Neinzul version of the Modular Fortress. It's pretty similar to the human one right now, but as fortress-versions of some of the champion modules get implemented there'll be more distinction. There's already a pretty big one: the neinzul fort doesn't have multi-repair, but it does have the MkI Cloaker Starship's ability (no, it doesn't cloak turrets, turrets are immune to cloaking ;) ).
Several bugfixes and a few balance changes round out the update. Notably, MkV Younglings no longer self-attrition, making their fabricators far more useful.
Update: 5.062 hotfix is out include the language file updates I accidentally omitted from 5.061, sorry about that!
Update: 5.063 hotfix is out because tackle drones were doing friendly-fire damage with their explosions. A few other fixes in there too :)
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
This update also adds a third nebula scenario, another step towards the kind of variety we want for champion "offroad" gameplay. This scenario introduces a second Neinzul splinter faction, but it takes a bit of a backseat to the player in this scenario. 5 more champion hull types have been added, including the next size-step up from what's been available previously. There's also 4 new scenario-unlocked module lines for champions available, all of them at least a bit off the wall.
Oh, beating the new scenario can also unlock the Neinzul version of the Modular Fortress. It's pretty similar to the human one right now, but as fortress-versions of some of the champion modules get implemented there'll be more distinction. There's already a pretty big one: the neinzul fort doesn't have multi-repair, but it does have the MkI Cloaker Starship's ability (no, it doesn't cloak turrets, turrets are immune to cloaking ;) ).
Several bugfixes and a few balance changes round out the update. Notably, MkV Younglings no longer self-attrition, making their fabricators far more useful.
Update: 5.062 hotfix is out include the language file updates I accidentally omitted from 5.061, sorry about that!
Update: 5.063 hotfix is out because tackle drones were doing friendly-fire damage with their explosions. A few other fixes in there too :)
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Monday, August 13, 2012
AI War: Ancient Shadows Beta Release Coverage
As far as getting the expansion to work with a Steam copy of the base game, you only need to download the installer and point it to the AI War folder in your Steam directory. We've been fielding that question a good amount over the past few days, so thought I'd share that bit of info here. We haven't reached out to Valve yet in regards to bringing Ancient Shadows onto Steam, but plan on it when the expansion is closer to being feature complete.
Here's all the aforementioned coverage that's cropped up over the last few days:
Rock, Paper, Shotgun -- Darkly Devious: AI War Ancient Shadows Expansion
IndieGames.com -- Demo: AI War - Ancient Shadows (Arcen Games)
PCGamer -- AI War Ancient Shadows expansion to add massive modular Champion battleships
The WarGamer -- AI War's expansion Ancient Shadows is now in beta and is available for pre-order
Blue's News -- AI War: Ancient Shadows Beta; Pre-purchases
PCGamesN -- AI Wars [sic]: Ancient Shadows expansion adds modular champion units
Indie Game Magazine -- ‘AI War’s Fourth Expansion Beta Available Now for Pre-Purchase
RTSGuru -- AI War: Ancient Shadows Expansion Coming October, Beta Launches
I-Luv-Games -- AI War Expansion “Ancient Shadows” Beta Pre-Orders Available
Strategy Core -- Out of the Shade
GameSquad -- AI War Ancient Shadows Beta Begins
GamersHell -- AI War: Ancient Shadows Enters Beta and Screens/Demo
Big thanks go out to these folks for taking the time to write about us!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
AI War Beta 5.058 "Further Shadows" Released!
This one is the first substantial content addition since the initial beta release of our new AI War expansion pack, Ancient Shadows.
This update adds a second scenario that can be seeded in a nebula, beginning the move towards much-needed variety for the champions' "offroad" exploits. This scenario introduces three new splinter factions (one zenith, one neinzul, one spire) with 16 units between them. A couple new champion hull types are possible as rewards (no, not larger than the ones previously available, but we're getting to that), and 5 new scenario-unlocked module lines for champions are available. Not all champions can use all modules, but it won't give you a module line you can't use at all.
Many long-time members of the Arcen community will appreciate one particular fix: the bug that caused a "ghost" of a unit's build queue to sometimes draw just a little below it is now gone. Finding the greater-than sign that needed to be greater-than-or-equal-to took 3 hours, so be happy! ;)
There's also a variety of other bugfixes and some balance changes (notably to part of the AI's reinforcements logic, since reinforcements have been so low lately).
Update: 5.059 hotfix is out to fix a bug in the 5.058 reinforcements changes that caused AI reinforcements to go Stark! Raving! Mad! Thanks for letting us know about that one, though the AI looks sad now.
Update: 5.060 hotfix is out to fix a variety of bugs (some recent, some longstanding. Nothing critical, but some moderately severe (for Fallen Spire particularly) wanted to get these out before starting on any bigger chunks.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
This update adds a second scenario that can be seeded in a nebula, beginning the move towards much-needed variety for the champions' "offroad" exploits. This scenario introduces three new splinter factions (one zenith, one neinzul, one spire) with 16 units between them. A couple new champion hull types are possible as rewards (no, not larger than the ones previously available, but we're getting to that), and 5 new scenario-unlocked module lines for champions are available. Not all champions can use all modules, but it won't give you a module line you can't use at all.
Many long-time members of the Arcen community will appreciate one particular fix: the bug that caused a "ghost" of a unit's build queue to sometimes draw just a little below it is now gone. Finding the greater-than sign that needed to be greater-than-or-equal-to took 3 hours, so be happy! ;)
There's also a variety of other bugfixes and some balance changes (notably to part of the AI's reinforcements logic, since reinforcements have been so low lately).
Update: 5.059 hotfix is out to fix a bug in the 5.058 reinforcements changes that caused AI reinforcements to go Stark! Raving! Mad! Thanks for letting us know about that one, though the AI looks sad now.
Update: 5.060 hotfix is out to fix a variety of bugs (some recent, some longstanding. Nothing critical, but some moderately severe (for Fallen Spire particularly) wanted to get these out before starting on any bigger chunks.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
AI War Ancient Shadows Beta/Preorders Begin!
Version 5.052 begins the public beta for Ancient Shadows, our newest expansion to AI War.We waited longer than usual to start the preorders and public beta for Ancient Shadows because we wanted to get the anchor feature to a playable state, and it's pretty complex under-the-hood.
So, what's the anchor feature? Champions! A bit of background: neither Chris nor I have been all that happy with the way RTS games usually do scripted campaigns or hero units. The concepts are quite compelling, however, so it's a matter of finding a different way. In the Light of the Spire we did the Fallen Spire stuff as our take on dropping a scripted campaign into our emergent-campaign world of AIW. It was a pretty huge hit. Well, in Ancient Shadows we're doing Champions as our take on bringing hero units into AIW.
Basically, with the Ancient Shadows expansion, you can now set a player to the "Champion" role and instead of a home command station and all the usual stuff a player starts with they get a single modular ship. But what a ship. At the beginning it's basically a super-starship that's pretty powerful but nothing world-shattering. But it can gain experience, and with experience it can upgrade modules.
***IMPORTANT NOTE: you CAN use champions in singleplayer. The easiest way is to set your player role to "Normal+Champion" and it will give you both a home command station and a champion
More importantly, the champions can travel to new parts of the galaxy that no normal ship can get to, and interact with the splinter factions of Humans, Zenith, Neinzul, and Spire that are found there. Successfully helping a splinter faction can (among other rewards) unlock whole new lines of modules and even new and bigger hulls that your champion can switch to. For the lore-inclined among you, these "offroad" scenarios also reveal more of the backstory through journal entries.
There's still quite a lot more variety planned for the champions (more module lines, more champion hulls, more splinter factions, etc), and plenty more in other expansion features:
* Modular fortresses! (the Human-tech variant is added in this update; Zenith, Neinzul, and Spire variants to come, probably via reward from an offroad scenario)
* 9 new bonus ship classes (coming soon, not implemented yet).
* 3 core AI guard posts and one new minor faction (coming soon, not implemented yet).
* New AI types (coming soon, not implemented yet).
* New Map types (coming soon, not implemented yet).
* A large amount of new music (to be released when the expansion fully launches, you'll need to download the final installer to get the music, it won't be delivered via update).
All that's still in the works, of course, but we wanted to get the public beta going so interested players could start experimenting with the new toys :)
Once you've updated to 5.052 (or whatever the latest beta version is when you read this) you can use the Ancient Shadows installer from here and demo it in trial mode or go ahead and pick up a license key here.
The expansion is priced at $4.99, but you can pick it up for $3.99 (20% off) during the preorder period!
Update: 5.053 hotfix is now out, correcting a problem with loading a few textures on OSX and making it a bit clearer how you can add a champion player to the game (particularly in singleplayer).
Update: 5.054 hotfix is out to fix a fairly critical bug where some champion-related data was not being cleared between games (leading to unhandled exceptions in some cases, MP desyncs in others, bad stuff), and also improving the champion-related UI a bit. Going to try something tomorrow to deal with the moderately intractable lobby-UI confusion going on right now, but wasn't time for it for this release.
Update: 5.055 hotfix is out to fix a couple of unhandled-exceptions bugs (one that could happen very occasionally when respawning a champion and rebuilding its modules and another related to creating a saved modular-fortress design) and a nasty data-not-getting-cleared bug in the lobby. Sorry for all these edge-case-ish nasties, but thanks very much for finding them. That's what beta is for :)
Update: 5.056 hotfix is out to add a "Normal+Champion" role because the previous model of requiring "1 Normal Player + 1 Champion Player" for using champions in a singleplayer was... really, really bad. I should never have expected that to fly, sorry ;) The old champion-only role is still available because it does have uses (more than one champion in singleplayer, and champion-only players in multiplayer) but its tooltips and related text have been changed to make it a lot clearer that you should use Normal+Champion if you're trying to use champions in singleplayer. 5.056 also has a bugfix and a few key UI-clarity improvements related to building and upgrading champion modules. Thanks for the ongoing beta feedback!
Update: 5.057 hotfix is out to fix a few unanticipated side-effects of the new Normal+Champion role. Nothing catastrophic this time, but wanted to get those and a few other important champion changes out before the evening to allow for testing. Thanks for the testing!
Monday, August 6, 2012
Busy Schedule For The Remainder Of 2012
If you've been keeping an eye on the forums and/or the Games By Design blog, you'll know we've been planning quite a bit for the second half of the year. A new AI War expansion, completely redone art for A Valley Without Wind, and the reveal of our latest title Shattered Haven.AI War: Ancient Shadows Beta Incoming
Beta and pre-orders are imminent. I can't give an exact date (or rather I don't want to provide one and have something come up after that ends up changing it), but those looking for the first taste of the fourth AI War expansion won't have to wait much longer. Take a peak at the Marauder Starbase if you haven't yet.
We're hoping for the beta to last around two months and then have an official release for Ancient Shadows alongside AI War 6.0 sometime in October.
A Valley Without Wind Art Rework Underway
This has been building up for sometime. After deciding not to go with the Kickstarter route for several reasons, we'll instead be investing our own funds into fully redone art by Heavy Cat Studios. Full details here.
During this period the content updates regular players are used to will be much less frequent. Our hope is that we can resume that level of support after the new art update, though ultimately that will depend on how sales go. That said, we had a new patch this week which includes a couple new spells and a bunch of new room designs.
Shattered Haven Announced
Oh yeah, and we announced a new game! We're definitely excited about the developments for AI War and Valley, but we're flat out pumped for Shattered Haven (formerly Alden Ridge) and its beta/official launch later this year.
More info on the top-down survival game coming soon.
Recent Press Coverage and Videos
VG247 -- Living the Dream: Arcen Games and the Indie Recipe, Part 1
VG247 -- Down to Earth: Arcen Games and the Indie Recipe, Part 2
Skullduggery.us -- AI War: Fleet Command (VG)
Game Anyone? Video Walkthroughs -- A Valley Without Wind Parts 1-8
Games Are Evil -- A Valley Without Wind’s 1.2 Update Marks Major Changes
GameConnect -- A Valley Without Wind Review
Roencia -- A Valley Without Wind Review
Gaming Nexus -- A Valley Without Wind Review
Eh+ Gamer Reviews A Valley Without Wind (Video)
Z-Giochi -- A Valley Without Wind Review (Italian)
TheComet on Livestream -- Let's Play AVWW
MadCraftX3 on Youtube -- How To Own at Valley Without Wind Beta
Diotliz on Youtube -- A Valley Without Wind Covered Farms
Shio Looks at Indie Bundle IV - A Valley Without Wind Gameplay
Michael and Billy Play A Valley Without Wind Parts 1-6
TheSurreall on Youtube -- A Valley Without Wind Let's Play Part 1 Freefall (French)
Bob Larry on Youtube -- Yoda Plays...: A Valley Without Wind 001
Friday, August 3, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.204-1.205 "Bubbles 'Round The Campfire" Released!
This one is continuing our trend of adding a new spell and other new tweaks each week while the game is undergoing its art revamp for the next few months.
Since I was out on vacation last week, I obviously didn't add any new spell last week. So this week there are two! Campfire is a new trap-type spell, which players have asked for for a while. Rising Bubbles is kind of a similar idea, except the bubbles float upwards -- and you can jump onto them like a wooden platform, if you want!
Rising Bubbles is particularly interesting to me because it can be used both in a movement/logistical sense, as well as for combat purposes. There are a lot of spells that we have that are affected by gravity in the downward direction, but this is one of the first that we have that actively floats upwards instead.
Also included in this release are a huge number of new player-made room templates. BenMiff has created another whopping hundred room templates, and Lavacamorada has also added 10 really cool room designs. A huge thanks to both of them!
More to come next week. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.205 fixes a minor-but-annoying bug in the prior version.
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.
Since I was out on vacation last week, I obviously didn't add any new spell last week. So this week there are two! Campfire is a new trap-type spell, which players have asked for for a while. Rising Bubbles is kind of a similar idea, except the bubbles float upwards -- and you can jump onto them like a wooden platform, if you want!
Rising Bubbles is particularly interesting to me because it can be used both in a movement/logistical sense, as well as for combat purposes. There are a lot of spells that we have that are affected by gravity in the downward direction, but this is one of the first that we have that actively floats upwards instead.
Also included in this release are a huge number of new player-made room templates. BenMiff has created another whopping hundred room templates, and Lavacamorada has also added 10 really cool room designs. A huge thanks to both of them!
More to come next week. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.205 fixes a minor-but-annoying bug in the prior version.
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.