This one is another step forward for the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll. Specifically, the addition of two new forms of nasty trick to play on the AI by exploiting its poor, defenseless networks:
1) Sabotage - blow up forts, forcefields, black hole machines, etc. All with no AIP-on-death or other negative death consequences (at least, that's the idea). It even starts off pretty cheap at 2 Hacking-Progress cost for the first unit. But with the usual 1.5x for each subsequent one you only get so many of these before the opportunity cost is pretty high. And pushing it too far means that the forgone opportunity is probably "breathing". But this should really help cut some of those Gordian knots with forts under ffs protected by all kinds of other stuff, etc. If you don't spend all your HaP elsewhere, of course.
2) Sensor Hacking - the effect is fairly temporary (35 seconds), and the cost starts off middling-high at 10 for the first application, but it gives all your units on that planet cloaking and immunity to tachyon (decloaking-from-firing rules are unaffected). It also decloaks all AI units on the planet (even camouflaged ones) for the duration. Normally you won't need this, but I suspect it can be useful while assaulting the AI HWs. Possibly Limburger-useful, but given the extremely finite amount of time you'll be able to apply this effect during the entire game it's probably a legitimate exchange rate.
We also fixed a bug where hacking tended to produce 30-second-warning counterwaves to anywhere (instead of the intended four-minute-warning ones with 3-hops depth). And another older one with Spirecraft Scouts causing alert like they were a major weapon.
Update: 7.009 released to fix a bug with the last version not properly reading some recent saves.
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, July 22, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Skyward Collapse 1.403 Beta "Serif" Released!
If you've not yet read about the general changes in the 1.4 beta line, now is a good time to do so. It's expected that we'll stay in beta for the 1.4 line until the week of July 29th, when we'll do an official release called 1.5. A lot is different here, so we want to make sure and give this time to mature before we put this out to everyone.
This one is the first release in a couple of weeks, which is uncharacteristic for us. Firstly, people seem pretty happy with the last beta version, so there were surprisingly few bug reports or requests for changes.
Given that, I've been putting most of my efforts into a combination of the upcoming Nihon no Mura expansion for Skyward, as well as our upcoming tactical roguelike Bionic Dues. Last week was also kind of a wash, too, because I had two unrelated deaths in the family and thus was hardly at work at all thanks to the funerals and related family events.
Anyway, about this new version: I think this is going to be a very exciting one! The visual look of it is vastly better thanks mainly to the new font, but also due to some other smaller additions. There are also two new difficulty modes, which should provide the experience that a number of players are looking for (either something between the old Medium and Hard, or something greater than the old Expert, respectively).
There are also a couple of really key balance changes in here. Lumber is no longer so incredibly scarce, and the Ally Camps no longer are something you can exploit (at least not in the same way; let us know if you think of something new).
This is probably the last release for a couple of weeks, unless something significant comes up today or tomorrow. I'm going to be unavailable this Friday and next week (boy this month is not good on that front). The week that I get back, the Nihon expansion will come out into beta. The 2.0 version of the game, plus that expansion, will officially release probably in the week of August 19th.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
This one is the first release in a couple of weeks, which is uncharacteristic for us. Firstly, people seem pretty happy with the last beta version, so there were surprisingly few bug reports or requests for changes.
Given that, I've been putting most of my efforts into a combination of the upcoming Nihon no Mura expansion for Skyward, as well as our upcoming tactical roguelike Bionic Dues. Last week was also kind of a wash, too, because I had two unrelated deaths in the family and thus was hardly at work at all thanks to the funerals and related family events.
Anyway, about this new version: I think this is going to be a very exciting one! The visual look of it is vastly better thanks mainly to the new font, but also due to some other smaller additions. There are also two new difficulty modes, which should provide the experience that a number of players are looking for (either something between the old Medium and Hard, or something greater than the old Expert, respectively).
There are also a couple of really key balance changes in here. Lumber is no longer so incredibly scarce, and the Ally Camps no longer are something you can exploit (at least not in the same way; let us know if you think of something new).
This is probably the last release for a couple of weeks, unless something significant comes up today or tomorrow. I'm going to be unavailable this Friday and next week (boy this month is not good on that front). The week that I get back, the Nihon expansion will come out into beta. The 2.0 version of the game, plus that expansion, will officially release probably in the week of August 19th.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Steam Summer Sale: Skyward Collapse, AI War and More
The Steam Summer Sale is live! Our discounts:
Skyward Collapse - 33% Off
AI War: Vengeance of the Machine - 40% Off
AI War Collection and All Other AI War Products - 75% Off
A Valley Without Wind Dual Pack (Includes 1&2) - 75% Off
Shattered Haven - 80% Off
Tidalis - 80% Off
I'd say more, but I must be off to offer up my wallet as a sacrifice to the Steam gods for what appears to be another bountiful harvest this year.
Latest Coverage
Press2Reset: Skyward Collapse Review (8/10)
TheMarriedGamers: Skyward Collapse Review (6/10)
Skyward Collapse - 33% Off
AI War: Vengeance of the Machine - 40% Off
AI War Collection and All Other AI War Products - 75% Off
A Valley Without Wind Dual Pack (Includes 1&2) - 75% Off
Shattered Haven - 80% Off
Tidalis - 80% Off
I'd say more, but I must be off to offer up my wallet as a sacrifice to the Steam gods for what appears to be another bountiful harvest this year.
Latest Coverage
Press2Reset: Skyward Collapse Review (8/10)
TheMarriedGamers: Skyward Collapse Review (6/10)
Monday, July 8, 2013
AI War Beta 7.006-7.007 "Design Meddling" Released!
This one continues our work on the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll. Specifically: more hacking! :)
This release actually only adds two new forms of hacking but I think many of you will really enjoy one or both:
1) Corrupting an AI bonus ship design to prevent that AI from building that type of ship for the rest of the game. (Farewell, AI-controlled Tackle Drone Launchers, you had a good run)
2) Copying an AI bonus ship design to let you build that type of ship (much as if you had unlocked it from an ARS).
Naturally there's a catch: first, for a given "backup server" you can only corrupt OR copy the design on it, and the hacking-progress costs of either are significant (particularly further hacks of the same type).
There are also some key changes to the hacking and hacking-response calculations in response to feedback since 7.002. Please keep it coming! I've got more planned hacking types and such, but where the feature as a whole goes is largely up to player feedback.
And we fixed a few bugs, and finally got around to answering some longstanding requests to modernize the Orbital Mass Driver's stats (I don't suggest getting shot at by that thing).
Update: 7.007 hotfix to fix a bug in the last version preventing knowledge gain. The AI wasn't counterhacking, though. Nope. No siree.
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 release actually only adds two new forms of hacking but I think many of you will really enjoy one or both:
1) Corrupting an AI bonus ship design to prevent that AI from building that type of ship for the rest of the game. (Farewell, AI-controlled Tackle Drone Launchers, you had a good run)
2) Copying an AI bonus ship design to let you build that type of ship (much as if you had unlocked it from an ARS).
Naturally there's a catch: first, for a given "backup server" you can only corrupt OR copy the design on it, and the hacking-progress costs of either are significant (particularly further hacks of the same type).
There are also some key changes to the hacking and hacking-response calculations in response to feedback since 7.002. Please keep it coming! I've got more planned hacking types and such, but where the feature as a whole goes is largely up to player feedback.
And we fixed a few bugs, and finally got around to answering some longstanding requests to modernize the Orbital Mass Driver's stats (I don't suggest getting shot at by that thing).
Update: 7.007 hotfix to fix a bug in the last version preventing knowledge gain. The AI wasn't counterhacking, though. Nope. No siree.
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, July 6, 2013
Shattered Haven 1.013 "Shingen Entryway" Released!
This one is mostly a couple of minor tweaks, but it does let you see one new cutscene that you could not see before.
Some clever players were able to get into the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility in a way that I did not expect, and then were getting stuck because that has not been created yet. So I've created the first room for that facility (at least the broad structure), and put a note in there that you can't continue in the current version of the game. But along with that, you get the new cutscene.
There are several alternate endings that are intended for happening through the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility, but I haven't actually implemented any of those yet for a couple of reasons. These were intended to be post-release content, but the game launched with a thud, so we had to set that aside. But also I just didn't have the perfect idea for how to make this as interesting an alternate-ending-area as I wanted.
As of a couple of days ago, I finally had an idea on that. Erik and I are going to work on this together, and hopefully in a few months will have something to release. It has to be something to fit into the cracks between other projects, because this isn't going to generate any income for the company and so is kind of a mix between hobby time (originally that's what Shattered Haven entirely was, long before Arcen, was my hobby) and fan service.
Anyway, the full Shingen implementation is still a long way off, but I'm really excited about the new idea that I have for the flow of it. My older ideas were pretty okay, but I wasn't excited all that excited about them.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. When you launch the game, hit the big "Play" button and then you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.
Some clever players were able to get into the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility in a way that I did not expect, and then were getting stuck because that has not been created yet. So I've created the first room for that facility (at least the broad structure), and put a note in there that you can't continue in the current version of the game. But along with that, you get the new cutscene.
There are several alternate endings that are intended for happening through the Shingen Rapid Prototyping Facility, but I haven't actually implemented any of those yet for a couple of reasons. These were intended to be post-release content, but the game launched with a thud, so we had to set that aside. But also I just didn't have the perfect idea for how to make this as interesting an alternate-ending-area as I wanted.
As of a couple of days ago, I finally had an idea on that. Erik and I are going to work on this together, and hopefully in a few months will have something to release. It has to be something to fit into the cracks between other projects, because this isn't going to generate any income for the company and so is kind of a mix between hobby time (originally that's what Shattered Haven entirely was, long before Arcen, was my hobby) and fan service.
Anyway, the full Shingen implementation is still a long way off, but I'm really excited about the new idea that I have for the flow of it. My older ideas were pretty okay, but I wasn't excited all that excited about them.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. When you launch the game, hit the big "Play" button and then you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Shattered Haven and Tidalis Featured in Pure Indie Bundle
While I can't speak to the rest of the games in the package (as I haven't played them myself), the total price tag represents a savings of $11 for the pair of Arcen titles alone. Don't wait to jump on the offer if it looks up your alley -- the deal, as is standard with this type of promotion, only runs for a limited time.
Elsewhere Around the Arcen Compound
To paraphrase how the guys on IndieDB put it: Skyward Collapse 1.4 -- An update so big, it has its own beta. A couple of beta patches have hit since, with the latest version introducing a pair of new defensive features.
Not to be outdone, AI War has received a weighty beta update of its own. The first significant patch since 7.0 launched last month begins tackling work on the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll, among other items.
Lastly, we revealed a bit more info on our next full tittle. For those who didn't catch Chris's mention of it: Bionic Dues is "a turn-based tactical... kind of roguelike-ish... strategic... thing," currently scheduled for a beta in late August or early September and 1.0 in October. We'll have some more substantial updates on it as we progress closer to those dates -- including one I'm particularly excited about.
New Skyward Collapse Reviews and Other Coverage
Skyward Collapse receives more positive reviews, Shattered Haven scores one too, and a handful of new LP videos as well.
Helicon Heroes: Skyward Collapse Review [4/5]
Game Debate: Skyward Collapse Review - Tile Here, Tile There, Tiles Everywhere [8.5/10]
GameSideStory: GameTest - Skyward Collapse (French)
Mega Games Hub: Skyward Collapse Review (PC) [6/10]
iPad Advisor: Grab Five Bucks And Play 'Skyward Collapse', A 4X Strategy God Game That Fights Back
Corsual Let's Play: Skyward Collapse
NightWhisperer: Skyward Collapse: Game 1 - Game 2
MyPlay: Shattered Haven Review [7/10] (Italian)
Ironfist Gaming: AI War - First Try
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Skyward Collapse 1.402 Beta "Man The Defenses!" Released!
If you've not yet read about the general changes in the 1.4 beta line, now is a good time to do so. It's expected that we'll stay in beta for the 1.4 line until the week of July 29th, when we'll do an official release called 1.5. A lot is different here, so we want to make sure and give this time to mature before we put this out to everyone.
This one is the second release of the day, and probably the last until Friday unless something drastic happens (tomorrow is a holiday here in the US).
This release has the remainder of the gameplay features that I'd wanted to get into the 1.4 line, but hadn't had time for before. Both of these features are heavily defensive-oriented.
The first lets you put garrisons in your military production buildings and your town centers, which makes the placement of these suddenly relevant. And it makes yet one more thing competing for your currency resource.
The second makes flowers actually useful now, by giving them the ability to add auto-heal on buildings in their towns. This again is quite useful if you're not wanting your structures destroyed (often you are). This isn't going to save you from the sorts of heavy-hitters who come over and stomp a building in one or two hits, but it will build your towns back up after they take some glancing blows, making it harder to wear down a well-defended town through accidental attrition from non-siege units.
Of course, both of these compete with existing things for your resources. The upgrades compete for your currency, and the flower gardens compete for your AP and the space in your town (and, to a lesser degree, pottery; but that's easier to come by, relatively speaking).
There are a couple of other fixes and tweaks in here, too.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
This one is the second release of the day, and probably the last until Friday unless something drastic happens (tomorrow is a holiday here in the US).
This release has the remainder of the gameplay features that I'd wanted to get into the 1.4 line, but hadn't had time for before. Both of these features are heavily defensive-oriented.
The first lets you put garrisons in your military production buildings and your town centers, which makes the placement of these suddenly relevant. And it makes yet one more thing competing for your currency resource.
The second makes flowers actually useful now, by giving them the ability to add auto-heal on buildings in their towns. This again is quite useful if you're not wanting your structures destroyed (often you are). This isn't going to save you from the sorts of heavy-hitters who come over and stomp a building in one or two hits, but it will build your towns back up after they take some glancing blows, making it harder to wear down a well-defended town through accidental attrition from non-siege units.
Of course, both of these compete with existing things for your resources. The upgrades compete for your currency, and the flower gardens compete for your AP and the space in your town (and, to a lesser degree, pottery; but that's easier to come by, relatively speaking).
There are a couple of other fixes and tweaks in here, too.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
AI War Beta 7.002-7.005 "Hacked To Pieces" Released!
This one is the first significant update since 7.0. We usually like to let the game catch its breath for a moment after an official release as that gives time for any "we want this fixed in an official" bugs to be found, etc. Anyway, it's been two weeks since the 7.001 hotfix (which is actually the official on steam) so I think things are pretty settled down now.
Now to get back to breaking stuff! ;)
The main meat of this update is definitely our initial work on the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll. The new hacking resource pretty much ran away with that poll, though champion revisions were a strong second place. Anyway, focusing on one issue at a time, so this update introduces the revised Hacking resource (it's been there, just in a secondary position).
Basically now when the AI gains AI Progress you also gain Hacking Progress. So it gets stronger, but you get to exploit new "vulnerabilities". You can also spend more HaP than you have, but when it goes negative the AI's response to hacking gets nasty fast. For now here's what the Hacker ship can do:
- Extract knowledge from an AI planet that's in supply.
- Redirect the research at an AI-controlled ARS on an AI planet so you can pick which of the planet's three bonus types to unlock instead of just the default one.
- Reverse-engineer an AI-controlled Fabricator on an AI planet so you can build that type of ship without holding the irreplaceable.
- Reverse-engineer an AI-controlled Advanced Factory or Advanced Starship Constructor on an AI planet so you can build that kind of MkIV ship without holding the irreplaceable.
More hacking forms to come, but the infrastructure work involved in making the above possible (largely the adding of a variable-contents second page to the Space Dock's buy menu for if you get more than 20 distinct fleet ship types) took up the available AIW dev time for this week so I wanted to get this out for y'all to tinker with.
Another major change was actually needed for the new hacking forms, but is a pretty major utility improvement all around: Space Docks and Starship Constructors (and similar broad queue-builders) can now build the mkIV and mkV versions of the ship types available at them (and Space Docks should be able to build the experimental fab fleet ships, though that may still be a bit rough) IF you have the necessary fabricator/factory/constructor OR the necessary hacking of said. This will probably make fabricator types and whatnot more usable in general, though generally speaking the intragalactic warp gates largely took care of this in the past.
There's also a few bugfixes in there. You know the drill.
Update: 7.003 hotfix is out now to fix one that was preventing the loading of many old saves.
Update: 7.004 hotfix is out to put in some protections against arithmetic overflow in the hacking-response calculations if you really run up the Hacking Progress costs.
Update: 7.005 hotfix is out to fix some unhandled-errors that could happen in extreme hacking-response situations and to clean up some other hacking-related bugs.
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.
Now to get back to breaking stuff! ;)
The main meat of this update is definitely our initial work on the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll. The new hacking resource pretty much ran away with that poll, though champion revisions were a strong second place. Anyway, focusing on one issue at a time, so this update introduces the revised Hacking resource (it's been there, just in a secondary position).
Basically now when the AI gains AI Progress you also gain Hacking Progress. So it gets stronger, but you get to exploit new "vulnerabilities". You can also spend more HaP than you have, but when it goes negative the AI's response to hacking gets nasty fast. For now here's what the Hacker ship can do:
- Extract knowledge from an AI planet that's in supply.
- Redirect the research at an AI-controlled ARS on an AI planet so you can pick which of the planet's three bonus types to unlock instead of just the default one.
- Reverse-engineer an AI-controlled Fabricator on an AI planet so you can build that type of ship without holding the irreplaceable.
- Reverse-engineer an AI-controlled Advanced Factory or Advanced Starship Constructor on an AI planet so you can build that kind of MkIV ship without holding the irreplaceable.
More hacking forms to come, but the infrastructure work involved in making the above possible (largely the adding of a variable-contents second page to the Space Dock's buy menu for if you get more than 20 distinct fleet ship types) took up the available AIW dev time for this week so I wanted to get this out for y'all to tinker with.
Another major change was actually needed for the new hacking forms, but is a pretty major utility improvement all around: Space Docks and Starship Constructors (and similar broad queue-builders) can now build the mkIV and mkV versions of the ship types available at them (and Space Docks should be able to build the experimental fab fleet ships, though that may still be a bit rough) IF you have the necessary fabricator/factory/constructor OR the necessary hacking of said. This will probably make fabricator types and whatnot more usable in general, though generally speaking the intragalactic warp gates largely took care of this in the past.
There's also a few bugfixes in there. You know the drill.
Update: 7.003 hotfix is out now to fix one that was preventing the loading of many old saves.
Update: 7.004 hotfix is out to put in some protections against arithmetic overflow in the hacking-response calculations if you really run up the Hacking Progress costs.
Update: 7.005 hotfix is out to fix some unhandled-errors that could happen in extreme hacking-response situations and to clean up some other hacking-related bugs.
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.
Skyward Collapse 1.401 Beta "Bandit Suppression" Released!
If you've not yet read about the general changes in the 1.4 beta line, now is a good time to do so. It's expected that we'll stay in beta for the 1.4 line until the week of July 29th, when we'll do an official release called 1.5. A lot is different here, so we want to make sure and give this time to mature before we put this out to everyone.
This one is small but valuable. Basically, the idea of this release is to tune up the balance from the first in the 1.4 series. Lots more of this will likely be needed, but for now this should really help with the early stompings by bandits in the age of man. ;)
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
This one is small but valuable. Basically, the idea of this release is to tune up the balance from the first in the 1.4 series. Lots more of this will likely be needed, but for now this should really help with the early stompings by bandits in the age of man. ;)
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Skyward Collapse 1.4 Beta "Dawn Hits The Cave Of Monsters " Released!
This one... oh good grief. Where to even start! This thing is incredibly huge -- so much so, that we're releasing it as a beta version prior to moving it into the official branch.
So be cautious with this update if you just want to play the game. You'll get these changes soon enough when version 1.5 is fully ready hopefully next week (based on further updates to this), but in the meantime anyone who updates to the beta is a bit of a guinea pig.
Impact To Casual/Light Players Of The Game
If you just kind of play the game casually for fun, and aren't playing on high difficulties or really internalizing a lot of the specific rules and balance of the game, my feeling is that this release will not change all that much for you. Hopefully.
At least not much that you have to re-learn, anyway. Mostly I think it would be things that you ignored because they seemed useless, but which you now find interesting because they are useful suddenly. Or of course you'll notice new content like extra monsters, monster caves, and ally camps... but these are things that are added on and conceptually straightforward, not something you have to re-learn.
Town specialization likely wouldn't hit you at all unless you are a bit more advanced. The resource cost shifts on the human units are really easy to adapt to because it's right there in the tooltip and there are only a few changes in general. And the new system for more-specialized human unit bonuses again probably won't matter much if you're more casual with things (and likely you were already ignoring it, so if you do wind up needing to learn these, it will be for the first time, not the second).
So that's pretty much it, as far as the less-intensive players are concerned. Some things are refined and easier, there's new content, and then a bunch of stuff they already weren't using got changed around. Some of that they still won't use unless they graduate to being a more advanced player, and other things they will learn to use for the first time like anything else.
That's the intent. If there's anywhere this breaks down, do let me know; I want to make the transition here not be a jarring one for these sorts of players, so comments on this are quite welcome.
General Cumulative Effects To Balance For The Advanced Player
Yeah, you have to relearn the game from the ground up, in terms of balance. What you build and when is out the window, and most advanced strategies will need to be re-thought.
Based on the feedback from this camp, I think that these changes will all be very welcome, and the whole point is really to make the game have more lasting complexity at this level of play. Or more to the point, to keep things from becoming routine and something you can just use the same strategy on over and over again. So in that light, it's not like you have to re-learn any new strategies: you just have to start thinking on your feet in new ways, and you have both new tools and new challenges to do so.
Trade is something I'm really excited about now; I think it fills a really cool role in advanced play. There is more I plan to do with the currency resource, as well, hopefully in the next couple of updates and then also in the first expansion.
The town specialization and building upgrades in general really change the resource model, and towns have to be planned more carefully. In my limited testing this seems to work out really well, but I'll be quite interested to know how it fits into your larger game play sessions across more playstyles.
The new mix of monster caves and ally camps in addition to the existing bandit keeps should prove interesting as well. I've done a lot of testing to try to get the spawn rates on all these to a sensible level, but a big part of the reason that this is going out as a beta is that I'm worried I have not really got this to a level that feels right. Feedback on this would be extremely extremely welcome.
The counterpoint to the new bandit and ally spawns is of course the new functionality of the embassy building. This isn't unlocked right from the start of the game, though, so it needs to have some sensible balance either way. But for games on expert, you may well need embassies, or at least they may be a key part of the strategy on many maps, who knows.
Specific Effects To Balance For The Advanced Player
There are some specific things to keep in mind.
1. Overall your methods for generating and using resources are going to be really affected. How do you build up which towns? Previously that wasn't really a problem, and resources were really plentiful by late-game.
2. The way that you'll have to deal with units on the board is in general very different now, too. The humans are going to wind up being a goodly bit less effective against mythologicals now that mythologicals now don't have classes other than just "mythological." Humans were getting bonuses against mythos kind of by accident.
And now the mix of humans that you have versus what other humans are out there matters a TON more. And then of course the new mix of bandit mythos will make you consider other things differently, too.
3. There are now more secondary side strategies, I think. Some interesting things could be done based off of generating a lot of trade, for instance; you could really ramp up score there in some interesting fashions, as well as now you could have some undefended-by-units towns as a strange sort of honey pot that keeps certain enemy units occupied (nobody with adamantine or whatever, but still).
Or you could pursue lots of embassies to keep the challenge a lot lower from bandits, but that comes with a really high AP cost and also takes a lot of real estate. In turn that's also going to hurt your ability to generate points, so you'd have to pair this with some other high-points strategy.
All in all, I think that the possibilities for advanced players got a lot more interesting, in other words.
Late Game Goodies For All
So the late game getting a bit boring was a general complaint people had. I think that should hopefully be dispelled now, even without the heroes and villains thing. More on that in a sec.
The general types of bandit monsters that are getting spawned shifts in each of the ages now, and the ones that you see in the Age of Gods are pretty intense. The idea being that there is definitely a feeling of ramp-up here. There are a few other changes to make this last age more intense, too.
These things, plus the other recent changes like the Armageddon option and so forth, should hopefully make it so that the game does not peter out at the end.
The heroes and villains idea has been pushed back to the second expansion, because it was just too huge of an undertaking to really do right, AND because I was really worried about the added complexity to the end of the base game. For people who already have the base game relatively mastered, expansions that add complexity are awesome. For someone brand new... well, we don't want their first experience to be too complex or that might be their last experience, if you take my meaning.
What Else Is Going On?
This update (plus the ones before it) probably represent 90% of what will be in the "2.0" update to the base game. The remaining things I want to change or add are all incremental refinements, and then of course polish on the changes that have been made so far here. So that's really coming along well -- we still have a bit more than a month until 2.0 will come out, so that's some excellent time for testing.
I do still want to update the font, though; and I also want to get the attack and death effects looking a bit better. I haven't forgotten about the font stuff, anyway!
The first expansion for the game, Nihon no Mura, will be ready to start beta in the next week or two, which I'm also excited about. The art for the new Japanese faction is almost complete, which is very exciting. And the art for two new terrain types and the new military outposts are also done. The art for the hamlets is coming along, but it took us a while to find just the right artist for that to split the work with Blue (because it's too much for one person).
The coding for the expansion hasn't even started yet, but now that the 2.0 update code is pretty much done, that will keep me from having to split my focus, which is good. Coding-wise, I should be able to knock a lot of that out.
In non-Skyward news, Keith is working away on the coding and implementation for Bionic Dues, and we're working on finding colorists for the game (we've already got a sketch artist doing awesome work for it). And Keith and I are tag-teaming the design there. It's coming along well I think, and it's definitely an exciting project for us. A turn-based tactical... kind of roguelike-ish... strategic... thing. I'll get better at describing it before we start a beta for it. ;) That one probably will come out in October for 1.0, and probably in late August or early September for beta.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
So be cautious with this update if you just want to play the game. You'll get these changes soon enough when version 1.5 is fully ready hopefully next week (based on further updates to this), but in the meantime anyone who updates to the beta is a bit of a guinea pig.
Impact To Casual/Light Players Of The Game
If you just kind of play the game casually for fun, and aren't playing on high difficulties or really internalizing a lot of the specific rules and balance of the game, my feeling is that this release will not change all that much for you. Hopefully.
At least not much that you have to re-learn, anyway. Mostly I think it would be things that you ignored because they seemed useless, but which you now find interesting because they are useful suddenly. Or of course you'll notice new content like extra monsters, monster caves, and ally camps... but these are things that are added on and conceptually straightforward, not something you have to re-learn.
Town specialization likely wouldn't hit you at all unless you are a bit more advanced. The resource cost shifts on the human units are really easy to adapt to because it's right there in the tooltip and there are only a few changes in general. And the new system for more-specialized human unit bonuses again probably won't matter much if you're more casual with things (and likely you were already ignoring it, so if you do wind up needing to learn these, it will be for the first time, not the second).
So that's pretty much it, as far as the less-intensive players are concerned. Some things are refined and easier, there's new content, and then a bunch of stuff they already weren't using got changed around. Some of that they still won't use unless they graduate to being a more advanced player, and other things they will learn to use for the first time like anything else.
That's the intent. If there's anywhere this breaks down, do let me know; I want to make the transition here not be a jarring one for these sorts of players, so comments on this are quite welcome.
General Cumulative Effects To Balance For The Advanced Player
Yeah, you have to relearn the game from the ground up, in terms of balance. What you build and when is out the window, and most advanced strategies will need to be re-thought.
Based on the feedback from this camp, I think that these changes will all be very welcome, and the whole point is really to make the game have more lasting complexity at this level of play. Or more to the point, to keep things from becoming routine and something you can just use the same strategy on over and over again. So in that light, it's not like you have to re-learn any new strategies: you just have to start thinking on your feet in new ways, and you have both new tools and new challenges to do so.
Trade is something I'm really excited about now; I think it fills a really cool role in advanced play. There is more I plan to do with the currency resource, as well, hopefully in the next couple of updates and then also in the first expansion.
The town specialization and building upgrades in general really change the resource model, and towns have to be planned more carefully. In my limited testing this seems to work out really well, but I'll be quite interested to know how it fits into your larger game play sessions across more playstyles.
The new mix of monster caves and ally camps in addition to the existing bandit keeps should prove interesting as well. I've done a lot of testing to try to get the spawn rates on all these to a sensible level, but a big part of the reason that this is going out as a beta is that I'm worried I have not really got this to a level that feels right. Feedback on this would be extremely extremely welcome.
The counterpoint to the new bandit and ally spawns is of course the new functionality of the embassy building. This isn't unlocked right from the start of the game, though, so it needs to have some sensible balance either way. But for games on expert, you may well need embassies, or at least they may be a key part of the strategy on many maps, who knows.
Specific Effects To Balance For The Advanced Player
There are some specific things to keep in mind.
1. Overall your methods for generating and using resources are going to be really affected. How do you build up which towns? Previously that wasn't really a problem, and resources were really plentiful by late-game.
2. The way that you'll have to deal with units on the board is in general very different now, too. The humans are going to wind up being a goodly bit less effective against mythologicals now that mythologicals now don't have classes other than just "mythological." Humans were getting bonuses against mythos kind of by accident.
And now the mix of humans that you have versus what other humans are out there matters a TON more. And then of course the new mix of bandit mythos will make you consider other things differently, too.
3. There are now more secondary side strategies, I think. Some interesting things could be done based off of generating a lot of trade, for instance; you could really ramp up score there in some interesting fashions, as well as now you could have some undefended-by-units towns as a strange sort of honey pot that keeps certain enemy units occupied (nobody with adamantine or whatever, but still).
Or you could pursue lots of embassies to keep the challenge a lot lower from bandits, but that comes with a really high AP cost and also takes a lot of real estate. In turn that's also going to hurt your ability to generate points, so you'd have to pair this with some other high-points strategy.
All in all, I think that the possibilities for advanced players got a lot more interesting, in other words.
Late Game Goodies For All
So the late game getting a bit boring was a general complaint people had. I think that should hopefully be dispelled now, even without the heroes and villains thing. More on that in a sec.
The general types of bandit monsters that are getting spawned shifts in each of the ages now, and the ones that you see in the Age of Gods are pretty intense. The idea being that there is definitely a feeling of ramp-up here. There are a few other changes to make this last age more intense, too.
These things, plus the other recent changes like the Armageddon option and so forth, should hopefully make it so that the game does not peter out at the end.
The heroes and villains idea has been pushed back to the second expansion, because it was just too huge of an undertaking to really do right, AND because I was really worried about the added complexity to the end of the base game. For people who already have the base game relatively mastered, expansions that add complexity are awesome. For someone brand new... well, we don't want their first experience to be too complex or that might be their last experience, if you take my meaning.
What Else Is Going On?
This update (plus the ones before it) probably represent 90% of what will be in the "2.0" update to the base game. The remaining things I want to change or add are all incremental refinements, and then of course polish on the changes that have been made so far here. So that's really coming along well -- we still have a bit more than a month until 2.0 will come out, so that's some excellent time for testing.
I do still want to update the font, though; and I also want to get the attack and death effects looking a bit better. I haven't forgotten about the font stuff, anyway!
The first expansion for the game, Nihon no Mura, will be ready to start beta in the next week or two, which I'm also excited about. The art for the new Japanese faction is almost complete, which is very exciting. And the art for two new terrain types and the new military outposts are also done. The art for the hamlets is coming along, but it took us a while to find just the right artist for that to split the work with Blue (because it's too much for one person).
The coding for the expansion hasn't even started yet, but now that the 2.0 update code is pretty much done, that will keep me from having to split my focus, which is good. Coding-wise, I should be able to knock a lot of that out.
In non-Skyward news, Keith is working away on the coding and implementation for Bionic Dues, and we're working on finding colorists for the game (we've already got a sketch artist doing awesome work for it). And Keith and I are tag-teaming the design there. It's coming along well I think, and it's definitely an exciting project for us. A turn-based tactical... kind of roguelike-ish... strategic... thing. I'll get better at describing it before we start a beta for it. ;) That one probably will come out in October for 1.0, and probably in late August or early September for beta.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game. 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.
Tidalis Adventure Intro (Live) by Pablo Vega
Our composer Pablo Vega passed along a special treat that we wanted to share. Pablo recently had a chance to record some live music in the church where he and his wife Hunter were married, and he took the time to touch on a piece from the Arcen library. Here's his note, along with the download link:
Hey Arcen fans,
I recorded this today to share with you because you're the best fans in the world. Thank you so much for supporting us all these years, we could not have made it this far without you. This is a live recording of the "Adventure Intro" from Tidalis.
Thanks again, you guys are so awesome! - Pablo Vega
Pablo Vega - Adventure Intro (Live).mp3
Hey Arcen fans,
I recorded this today to share with you because you're the best fans in the world. Thank you so much for supporting us all these years, we could not have made it this far without you. This is a live recording of the "Adventure Intro" from Tidalis.
Thanks again, you guys are so awesome! - Pablo Vega
Pablo Vega - Adventure Intro (Live).mp3