Arcen Games is pleased to announce the downloadable PC/Mac title A Valley Without Wind -- our fast-paced, open world sidescroller of nearly limitless proportions -- has entered its final beta phase, with an official launch now in sight. To celebrate, a brand new trailer for the game has been released (best viewed in 1080p), along with 18 new screenshots and updated demos as well.
With the game's community heavily involved in the beta so far, the game has seen an astronomical number of changes and improvements added by our relentless programmers. Thankfully after a whirlwind of patching, the game's dust has settled, and we welcome everyone to take a look around at what the world of Environ has evolved into.
The mechanics have been streamlined, a fully fleshed-out player experience is now in place, and tons of new content has been packed in -- including a variety of new missions, spells, armor enchants, guardian powers, and more. Multiplayer has also come a long way, and players are having a blast running their own beta servers. There are a few multiplayer remaining bugs to iron out prior to 1.0, plus the need for a server browser, but it's already a satisfying experience.
Beyond all that, the game has become much more accessible to new players. A planning menu complete with handy 'supplies', 'things to do', and 'where to find stuff' sections; opt out popup tooltips; and other improvements to usability and clarity result in a newfound flow to the title. Players who are returning after a long absence are heartily encouraged to play through the game's intro mission, given how much has changed. If you'd like to know more before you play, or just have a fetish for external manuals, check out our Learning The Game section on the A Valley Without Wind Wiki.
There's still so much to come for AVWW, both prior to 1.0 and after! Our head designer Chris Park states his vision for the game going forward on his devblog:
"Our plan is to take the AI War route, and release tons of free DLC as well to do at least a couple of paid expansions. Hopefully in 2-3 years, we're still developing both AI War and AVWW -- that is the ideal scenario for me personally.”
About A Valley Without Wind
The full beta version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC and Mac for pre-order at a substantial discount from the game's official launch price. Customers gain instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases through 1.0 and beyond. The game can be purchased and downloaded directly through the developer as well as on GamersGate, Impulse, and MacGamesStore. A demo is also available, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only some tier restrictions.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is constantly in development. It continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in late March. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. To get more involved with how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects, or to find populated multiplayer servers, be sure to stop by our forums.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
Showing posts with label Screenshots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Screenshots. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
AVWW: New Intro Mission, MineCon Exhibiting, And IGF
Arcen Games is excited to pass along new information and details surrounding A Valley Without Wind, the game of infinite procedurally-generated 2D sidescrolling and so much more. The title has reached a sizable milestone, wrapping up series one of the beta patch releases. During the period the game saw 40 individual updates over 43 days, with 640 distinct changes made in all. Check out all the beta series one statistics for a full picture of what's been added since the game's public arrival six weeks back. Special thanks goes out to AVWW's community for all the feedback and help to get us to this point.
The conclusion of the beta's first phase is marked by the release of an all new Intro Mission for the game. The goal of the mission is to give new players a linear way to get acclimated with the game before they ever encounter the world map, take on broader decisions, etc. It offers a more traditional intro for any sort of platformer, with players starting out with no ability to do anything except run and jump, and rapidly gaining new abilities that have to be used immediately. The new addition should allow players to be more comfortable navigating around the world in the side view, become familiar with how buildings, surface areas, and undergrounds all work, and have the confidence to head out onto the world map on their own.
In other news, AVWW has been entered into IGF 2012, along with the upcoming Indie Games Challenge. We're very excited to be competing in both, and wish the best of luck to all those who entered. Also, we're heading to MineCon! We'll be in Las Vegas November 18th and 19th to exhibit at Mojang's event, and are extremely excited to have a chance to share our game with some 4,500 attendees. Those who are making the trek are encouraged to stop by for a hands-on session, enter our game giveaways, and participate in some other fun stuff we're still currently cooking up.
The full version of A Valley Without Wind is available for pre-order at 50% off the launch price during early beta, with customers gaining instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases. An updated demo--complete with the aforementioned intro mission--is out now for download, and a huge batch of screenshots showing off what's new have been released as well.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is still very much in development. The game continues to evolve, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in 2012. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
The conclusion of the beta's first phase is marked by the release of an all new Intro Mission for the game. The goal of the mission is to give new players a linear way to get acclimated with the game before they ever encounter the world map, take on broader decisions, etc. It offers a more traditional intro for any sort of platformer, with players starting out with no ability to do anything except run and jump, and rapidly gaining new abilities that have to be used immediately. The new addition should allow players to be more comfortable navigating around the world in the side view, become familiar with how buildings, surface areas, and undergrounds all work, and have the confidence to head out onto the world map on their own.
In other news, AVWW has been entered into IGF 2012, along with the upcoming Indie Games Challenge. We're very excited to be competing in both, and wish the best of luck to all those who entered. Also, we're heading to MineCon! We'll be in Las Vegas November 18th and 19th to exhibit at Mojang's event, and are extremely excited to have a chance to share our game with some 4,500 attendees. Those who are making the trek are encouraged to stop by for a hands-on session, enter our game giveaways, and participate in some other fun stuff we're still currently cooking up.
The full version of A Valley Without Wind is available for pre-order at 50% off the launch price during early beta, with customers gaining instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases. An updated demo--complete with the aforementioned intro mission--is out now for download, and a huge batch of screenshots showing off what's new have been released as well.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is still very much in development. The game continues to evolve, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in 2012. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Zenith Remnant Now Available For Preorder!
Arcen Games is pleased to announce that The Zenith Remnant, the first expansion to its popular space RTS AI War, is now available for preorder. This expansion is still in the early stages of development, but we're making the alpha/beta versions available to anyone on a trial basis, and in full for anyone who preorders, so that our community can be involved with feedback and ideas as development progresses. This sort of open development process has been so successful for our 2.0 version that we just couldn't cut our community out of even the earliest stages of our expansion.
 Spokes Map |
 Tree Map |
What Is Planned For The Final Release?
To some extent, exactly what is planned is a bit uncertain, and for a very good reason -- we plan to rely on community feedback and discussion to help us build the product as we go. That said, there are a lot of very specific ideas that are now on the schedule for implementation: This is the list of planned features, and you're free to comment on any of them at any time.
As you can see, we actually have over 80% of the planned features somewhat finalized, but then again nothing is finalized until we go live. If players hate a feature, or a better one surfaces before we get started on one idea, then we're going to adjust our plans accordingly -- that's the uncertainty mentioned above.
In a broad sense, here's what will definitely be in the expansion:
* 80 to 100 new ships, including:
* At least 12 new ship classes with a variety of abilities.
* At least 6 massive "Golem" ships.
* At least 5 new "capturables" other than Golems.
* Several new ships for allowing players expanded ways to control fleets.
* At least 4 new map styles.
* At least 12 new AI Types.
* A new, neutral minor faction in the galaxy: the Zenith Aliens (NPCs).
* 30-40 minutes of new in-game music tracks.
* At least two universal new AI ship subsystems (like Astro Trains).
Three Upcoming Golems (Shown Actual Size In Window)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
AI War 2.0 (Achievements, Leaderboards, Steam and Direct2Drive!)
Arcen Games is very pleased to announce the release of AI War: Fleet
Command version 2.0, which marks the culmination of our long-running
post-release overhaul. To see just how epic this journey has been, take
a look at this: AI
War 2.0 vs. 1.0, A Retrospective. The cumulative post-release
notes, included near the end, are literally novella-length (46,573
words). That's how much has changed in the since our initial release.
You can download a trial version of the game, as well as purchase a license key to unlock the full version. If you already have the game or demo installed, just hit "Check For Updates" inside the game to get the latest patch.
AI War Comes To Steam and Direct2Drive!
Direct2Drive and Steam join Impulse and GamersGate in offering AI War-- be sure to check them out! The Steam version includes online leaderboards and Steam achievements (other versions are all local-only for those features). If you've previously purchased your copy of AI War from another platform and would like to activate it on Steam to get those features, you will be able to do so in the near future. In celebration of the release of 2.0, AI War is also going to be 25% off at Steam through Oct. 27th -- and look for similar sales at other partners very soon.
Many Updates:
- New local high scoreboards for everyone, and online high scoreboards through Steam.
- 129 Achievements, which can be logged locally and/or through Steam.
- Player ships can now be assigned preferred target types, which greatly increases tactical control.
- A number of co-op-related interface improvements: see allied resources, more informative gifting lists, etc.
- Several new visual effects: smoke trails and sparking for damaged ships, etc.
- Much improved (or entirely replaced) graphics for over 50 different ships.
- Ships now accelerate and decelerate when moving, making them much more graceful.
- New Collision Priorities make placement of larger/fixed ships in a group of smaller mobile ships much easier.
- Players can now select multiple AI Modifiers at once in the lobby. Turrets have been rebalanced and made more distinct and interesting.
- Custom planet name lists can now be used for those who don't like the random names.
- Networking improvmeents.
- Many other bugfixes and balance tweaks.
The above list is just a sampling of what has changed since 1.301, however, so be sure to check out the full release notes to see everything. And remember, to see everything since 1.0, see this: AI War 2.0 vs. 1.0, A Retrospective.
As an added note, if you are a player who is is unable to install patches for whatever reason (this is usually a windows issue), you can download the patch files through the following link: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1000To2000.zip
Then unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory. This is a cumulative update, so as long as you have at least version 1.000 of the game installed, this will update you to the latest version (2.000) without any issues.
This update now available for Impulse customers.
For existing GamersGate customers, you can always upgrade your copy from the "Check For Updates" link in the game just like customers from our direct site can. The latest version of the installer will also be coming to GamersGate, but that will affect new customers only.
You can download a trial version of the game, as well as purchase a license key to unlock the full version. If you already have the game or demo installed, just hit "Check For Updates" inside the game to get the latest patch.
 Achievements |
 High Scores |
Direct2Drive and Steam join Impulse and GamersGate in offering AI War-- be sure to check them out! The Steam version includes online leaderboards and Steam achievements (other versions are all local-only for those features). If you've previously purchased your copy of AI War from another platform and would like to activate it on Steam to get those features, you will be able to do so in the near future. In celebration of the release of 2.0, AI War is also going to be 25% off at Steam through Oct. 27th -- and look for similar sales at other partners very soon.
Many Updates:
- New local high scoreboards for everyone, and online high scoreboards through Steam.
- 129 Achievements, which can be logged locally and/or through Steam.
- Player ships can now be assigned preferred target types, which greatly increases tactical control.
- A number of co-op-related interface improvements: see allied resources, more informative gifting lists, etc.
- Several new visual effects: smoke trails and sparking for damaged ships, etc.
- Much improved (or entirely replaced) graphics for over 50 different ships.
- Ships now accelerate and decelerate when moving, making them much more graceful.
- New Collision Priorities make placement of larger/fixed ships in a group of smaller mobile ships much easier.
- Players can now select multiple AI Modifiers at once in the lobby. Turrets have been rebalanced and made more distinct and interesting.
- Custom planet name lists can now be used for those who don't like the random names.
- Networking improvmeents.
- Many other bugfixes and balance tweaks.
The above list is just a sampling of what has changed since 1.301, however, so be sure to check out the full release notes to see everything. And remember, to see everything since 1.0, see this: AI War 2.0 vs. 1.0, A Retrospective.
As an added note, if you are a player who is is unable to install patches for whatever reason (this is usually a windows issue), you can download the patch files through the following link: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1000To2000.zip
Then unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory. This is a cumulative update, so as long as you have at least version 1.000 of the game installed, this will update you to the latest version (2.000) without any issues.
This update now available for Impulse customers.
For existing GamersGate customers, you can always upgrade your copy from the "Check For Updates" link in the game just like customers from our direct site can. The latest version of the installer will also be coming to GamersGate, but that will affect new customers only.
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