Thursday, May 16, 2013
Nick Trujillo Presents: Skyward Collapse Comic Page 2
The second page of Nick Trujillo's comic is now up! Here's page one if you missed it. Three more pages are in the works, which will be released periodically leading up to the release of Skyward Collapse on the 23rd. Enjoy!
Monday, May 13, 2013
Skyward Collapse OST Breakdown
The Skyward Collapse OST is very different from other soundtracks that I've composed for our games. To start with, this is the first soundtrack that I've co-composed with someone else. Ted Hardin is a good friend of mine, an incredibly talented guitarist, and a master of melody in my humble opinion. By that I mean that with even the most simple chord progression, he can wield some unbelievable themes and melodic lines. Collaborating on this album was a lot of fun, and also opened up my eyes to a genre of music that I haven't delved in too much. Because the game is focused around building, we wanted the music to emulate a very relaxed and calm environment. Much like the music of Sim City or even Sword & Sworcery, we wanted a laid back atmosphere for our players as they create their realms. In order to accomplish this, we decided to have a lot of the music based around the acoustic guitar (a fantastic suggestion from Mr. Arcen himself, Chris Park).
Along with that acoustic, relaxed feel, Ted and I also wanted to relate the music back to the basic themes of the game (it is a game soundtrack after all). So, as you can see from the titles, and from hearing the music, we brought in the Norse and Greek elements throughout the soundtrack and fused those themes with our relaxed, acoustic genre.
The Arrival
For the last few years, I've had an intern from the local high school Durham Academy. After the seniors at DA finish their AP Exams, they have a week or two to do an internship in a field that they're interested in pursuing. This year my intern was Austin Mack, who will be attending Northeastern University in Boston to get his to degree in music composition and technology. He also happens to be a talented violinist, so we recorded the main melody of this piece with him on the violin. (Last year my intern was Jared Anderson, who is now at Berklee College of Music getting a degree in music technology. He recorded the electric guitar on the A Valley Without Wind 2 OST).
The Arrival is supposed to be the player's introduction in to the world of the game. The feel for this intro was inspired by the amazing wallpaper art for the game created by Daniette "Blue" Wood. That same wallpaper is on the cover of the OST.
Stages Of The Day Tracks
The next four tracks are based around different times of the day in the game world. From morning until late at night, we wanted to compose pieces to paint a picture of these various time stages. These tracks introduce the main feel of the game, with the focus around the acoustic guitar, and our relaxed building-game music genre. Ted really outdoes himself with the guitar-play.
Rise And Shine - We start the piece with some bells to represent the disappearing of stars. The strings that kick in represent the rising sun and the start of the new day. The guitar adds the rhythm to the track and creates the feel of waking up to a sunny day overlooking rolling fields.
High Noon - The guitar does most of the magic in this piece, creating an almost "western" sound. The synth pad in the intro and throughout also adds depth and helps create that feel of the midday hot sun beaming down.
Afternoon Stroll - The laid back guitar in this creates that "afternoon stroll through the fields" feel, along with the bongos playing quietly in the background to add a little motion. The bells creeping in represent the sun going down and the reintroduction of the stars.
Late Night - This piece was our homage to midnight, quite possibly the most creative time of day for any musician. So, we found our tempo, hit record, and let the late night creative juices take over. Most of this was improvised on the spot, with a few things tweaked here and there and overdubbed. This is one of my favorite pieces of the whole soundtrack.
Norse Summer, Greek Winter
In any realm of composition, opposing themes are always a cool idea. In this case, since the game is the Norse vs. the Greeks, what better way to pay homage to that then to have opposing themes from both sides. The Norse Summer theme is basically all Ted on the guitar. We recorded the background guitar first, and then overdubbed him on the melody on top.
Along with that acoustic, relaxed feel, Ted and I also wanted to relate the music back to the basic themes of the game (it is a game soundtrack after all). So, as you can see from the titles, and from hearing the music, we brought in the Norse and Greek elements throughout the soundtrack and fused those themes with our relaxed, acoustic genre.
Track List:
1) Skyward Collapse Theme
2) The Arrival
3) Rise And Shine
4) High Noon
5) Afternoon Stroll
6) Late Night
7) Norse Summer
8) Greek Winter
9) The Architect
10) Running In The Sun
11) The Earth And The Sky
12) Follow Me Down
Skyward Collapse Theme
The main theme of the game is based around text from the "Hávamál", a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. The poems are said to be the words of Odin, presenting his people with advice for living, proper conduct, and wisdom. The particular passage that I chose is one of the more famous passages from the collection:
- Deyr fé, Cattle Die,
- deyja frændr, kinsmen die,
- deyr sjálfr et sama; you yourself die;
- ek veit einn, I know one thing
- at aldri deyr: which never dies:
- dómr um dauðan hvern. the fate of the honored dead.
The Arrival
For the last few years, I've had an intern from the local high school Durham Academy. After the seniors at DA finish their AP Exams, they have a week or two to do an internship in a field that they're interested in pursuing. This year my intern was Austin Mack, who will be attending Northeastern University in Boston to get his to degree in music composition and technology. He also happens to be a talented violinist, so we recorded the main melody of this piece with him on the violin. (Last year my intern was Jared Anderson, who is now at Berklee College of Music getting a degree in music technology. He recorded the electric guitar on the A Valley Without Wind 2 OST).
The Arrival is supposed to be the player's introduction in to the world of the game. The feel for this intro was inspired by the amazing wallpaper art for the game created by Daniette "Blue" Wood. That same wallpaper is on the cover of the OST.
Stages Of The Day Tracks
The next four tracks are based around different times of the day in the game world. From morning until late at night, we wanted to compose pieces to paint a picture of these various time stages. These tracks introduce the main feel of the game, with the focus around the acoustic guitar, and our relaxed building-game music genre. Ted really outdoes himself with the guitar-play.
Rise And Shine - We start the piece with some bells to represent the disappearing of stars. The strings that kick in represent the rising sun and the start of the new day. The guitar adds the rhythm to the track and creates the feel of waking up to a sunny day overlooking rolling fields.
High Noon - The guitar does most of the magic in this piece, creating an almost "western" sound. The synth pad in the intro and throughout also adds depth and helps create that feel of the midday hot sun beaming down.
Afternoon Stroll - The laid back guitar in this creates that "afternoon stroll through the fields" feel, along with the bongos playing quietly in the background to add a little motion. The bells creeping in represent the sun going down and the reintroduction of the stars.
Late Night - This piece was our homage to midnight, quite possibly the most creative time of day for any musician. So, we found our tempo, hit record, and let the late night creative juices take over. Most of this was improvised on the spot, with a few things tweaked here and there and overdubbed. This is one of my favorite pieces of the whole soundtrack.
Norse Summer, Greek Winter
In any realm of composition, opposing themes are always a cool idea. In this case, since the game is the Norse vs. the Greeks, what better way to pay homage to that then to have opposing themes from both sides. The Norse Summer theme is basically all Ted on the guitar. We recorded the background guitar first, and then overdubbed him on the melody on top.
The Greek Winter track is the complete opposite of the Norse Summer. As opposed to having a lot of motion in the backgrounds with a fluid melody, the piece is stagnant (almost cold sounding). We added the drone in the background to represent emptiness and almost a chill that passes slowly throughout. The guitar on top is based on Greek bouzouki music. Very free-form, devoid of tempo, and almost haunting in spirit.
The Architect
The Architect was my version of the city-building music you hear in games like "Sim City" (hence the name). Simply put, it's just feel good music that grooves and gets you excited about creating your realm. It's very happy in nature and a good addition to a laid back soundtrack.
Motion Tracks
The last three tracks were all composed based around the idea of motion.
Running In the Sun - Starts with a fun, in-your-face percussion, almost like the ticking of an old clock. Ted's rhythm guitar really gets the idea of motion going, and then the introduction of a moving percussion helps solidify it. This track was a lot of fun to put together!
The Earth And The Sky - While the earth is our rock, it is in constant motion. The way it moves with the sky was a really cool notion to play with. So for this piece, the interweaving of the background guitar with the melody represents this idea of the earth constantly moving, counter to the motion of the stars, the sun, the moon, the clouds, and sky.
Follow Me Down - For this piece, we thought about motion in terms of gravitational pull, but on a more human level. The earth's gravity pulls us down, but people also gravitate towards each other. We tried to represent that by having the guitar being the "instigator" in the music, and having the piano counter its melodies. This track is probably my favorite as Ted and I really got to play around with the push and pull of the music. Much like how people pull each other in, music can ebb and flow in a similar fashion.
Be sure to check out the soundtrack on BandCamp, or pick up a copy of the game to get the music in real time. As always, thank you for your continued support!
Pablo Vega
Composer & Lead Sound Designer, Arcen Games
Friday, May 10, 2013
Skyward Collapse Teaser Mini-Trailer
How do you balance a war between towns without letting either side obliterate the other? How do you rule over gods, creatures, and men who refuse to obey you? How do you build a thriving landscape of villages against the threat of bandits and mythological powers? Skyward Collapse places you into the role of The Creator, and frees you to tackle these problems your own way. Brought to you by the developer of the modern strategy classic AI War: Fleet Command, Arcen's second full strategy title is equally unique (but far easier to learn): a turn-based 4x strategic god-game.
Your task is to build and populate the floating continent of Luminith. You can create -- but not control -- gods, creatures, and artifacts from both Greek and Norse mythology. The power you wield with these is immense. (As one example, Heimdall's horn causes everyone standing outside to drop dead.) Your task is to keep both factions alive until The Master calls you home -- but this is harder than it sounds. Bandits, along with periodic Woes add to the variety of challenges that you'll face in any given game. Every game plays out completely differently, and you'll need even the craziest of your powers in order to survive what lies in store for you.
Game Features
* A turn-based strategic god-game where you control neither faction, but instead strive to maintain the balance of power.
* Make towns, trade, diplomacy, and war as the boardgame-like floating continent continues to construct itself around you.
* Persuade your minions into doing what you want through incentives as well as controlling what buildings and resources they have access to.
* 16 gods, each with unique passive abilities and three active powers, help you further your goals as you pass into the Age of Monsters.
* Level up your player profile by winning games. Twelve related unlockable buildings in all!
* Straightforward controls paired with an intuitive and helpful interface make this an easy title to pick up... but the strategy runs deep.
* Multiple difficulty tiers let you play a very relaxed game up to a nail-bitingly difficult one. There's no one best way to win!
* Co-op multiplayer planned for 1.0 (but not available from the start of beta).
More Stuff!
Original teaser
Free wallpaper
Lengthy Q&A
Nick Trujillo Presents (comic)
Launches on Steam on May 23rd!
Monday, May 6, 2013
Nick Trujillo Presents: Skyward Collapse Comic Page 1
I became aware of Nick Trujillo through the Strip Search reality show that Penny Arcade has been running. Nick was my personal favorite to win, so I was surprised to see him eliminated when he was. Bad days happen to everyone, though.
I have a huge love of comics in general, and so had been looking at the art that all the SS cartoonists had been doing on their websites. Hugely awesome stuff across the board. But when Nick was eliminated, I knew immediately I wanted to reach out and do a sort of PA Presents style of comic to help explain our newest game in a humorous fashion. It's always a challenge to get our message across clearly and concisely, but I also felt like Nick could create a work that would be funny and interesting on its own merits.
So here we are! This is the first of five pages, which will be released periodically leading up to the release of Skyward Collapse later this month. Enjoy!
I have a huge love of comics in general, and so had been looking at the art that all the SS cartoonists had been doing on their websites. Hugely awesome stuff across the board. But when Nick was eliminated, I knew immediately I wanted to reach out and do a sort of PA Presents style of comic to help explain our newest game in a humorous fashion. It's always a challenge to get our message across clearly and concisely, but I also felt like Nick could create a work that would be funny and interesting on its own merits.
So here we are! This is the first of five pages, which will be released periodically leading up to the release of Skyward Collapse later this month. Enjoy!
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Q&A For Skyward Collapse (Plus New Screenshots!)
Even with a recent detailed interview that we did about our upcoming game Skyward Collapse, there have been a lot of questions about the game from our players in the forums. Rather than make you hunt through forum threads for the answers we've provided, we've collected them here!
Note: these are all taken out of context, and were originally comments where we are soliciting criticism of our marketing copy. None of these questions were asked in an antagonistic spirit.
Q: You've mentioned "Villages," which sounds kind of tiny and small scale, like I'm giving Bob the farmer a pitchfork to go stab Cletus on his donkey.
Well... this is a good point in some ways, but in other ways you've about got the right of it. Maybe "towns" instead of villages would give a better impression. This is not an all-out war on the scale of something like AI War, where there are vast armies going around. You are training professional military units, it's true, along with mythological creatures that do great harm. And it's also true that there are bandits that pop out to get you, etc. That said, this isn't army-on-army battle. It's about individual units running around and doing stuff for the short while that they survive, generally. ;)
In other words, the combat is consistent and potentially intense, but the scale of the units never gets too huge (that would also get tedious). In some respects that makes this a bit like a tactics game, except you can't control the tactics and you're using strategy to make the tactics play out (most likely) how you want. But I've drifted off point: what I originally was trying to say that the combat tends to stay small-scale because guys don't live very long. They're all bloodthirsty, and you can't tell them not to fight, so only one of two things are going to happen: a) they are going to go ravage the other side's towns while you do nothing; b) you're going to help the other side raise a counter-force and thus that first bloodthirsty dude is going to die. And back and forth from there.
Anyhow, there's also a distinct town-on-town flavor here. You can build multiple towns per faction (and in longer games, will need to), and each town pretty much just wars (or tries for diplomacy) with its nearest neighbor. If one town falls then it flips allegiances, and the balance of power swings pretty heavily. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you're going to wield your god powers. At any rate, it makes the town-on-town aspect pretty important.
Q: You've mentioned "artifacts" a few times, but what really are those?
1. Mythological Tokens (Global Effect): These are kind of like "global enchantments" in MTG. Basically, you place one of these for a faction (at a hefty specialized resource cost), and then something happens to all your dudes (or all the enemy dudes, or all buildings of a certain sort, or whatever) for X number of turns. Typically something substantial changes for 3-5 turns.
2. Mythological Tokens (Unit Pickups): These are kind of like "enchant creatures" in MTG. You place one of these for a faction (again at a hefty specialized resource cost)... and then various units vie for it. Typically the first 5 units of either side (or bandits) to reach it will get whatever the bonus is. Some of them are limited to only ranged units or only mythological creatures or whatever, so everyone else ignores it. But these things confer a permanent status effect of some sort onto the units that pick them up, making them more powerful in some unique way.
3. Ruins (Unit Pickups): Sometimes you can control these, a lot of times (depending on the map type) they just pop up themselves. These work basically like mythological tokens in that they give status bonuses to the first 5 dudes to reach them. Anybody but a god can go visit these, and will, of their own accord. There's a set list of more generic bonuses here, rather than the faction-specific stuff from the mythological tokens. But these upgrades can still swing the normal balance of power around in a moderate fashion for a short while.
Thus far, the first three things we've talked about are all "moderate effects" for the most part. These have a sizable effect on the game, but it's not nuclear-warhead levels of drastic.
4. God Tokens: Each god has 3 of these, so there are 48 of them in all. There are a very small number of duplicates between gods (maybe 6-8 out of 48, I've not counted it up), but the gods themselves are all unique. These god tokens range from "very serious" in consequences to "cataclysmic." Holy moly are these OP. That's not exploitable, that's actually a problem for you since you're trying to maintain balance. But if you want to really do well, you need to use these things... and then figure out how to recover from what you just did to yourself. ;) The mechanic is that the god related to the token immediately seeks it out once you place it, and then when they reach it the effect immediately happens.
A few example god tokens:
Mjolnir (Thor): When he reaches Mjolnir, he immediately destroys the entire nearest enemy town, including the town center. This token cannot be placed on a building.
Reginnaglar (Njord): All allied buildings that currently exist get a permanent 100% bonus to their health based on their base health.
Skadi's Skis (Skadi): All allied units currently on the board gain the power to cross mountains at no movement penalty.
Gjallarhorn (Heimdall): All non-god units on the map, allied, enemy, and bandit -- all get killed at once, and his faction gets the destruction points for all of them. (This is the horn he blows at the start of the end of the world, in mythology).
Bow (Apollo): All allied archery range units on the board at the time become invulnerable for 10 turns. (Um... ow. Archery units are already really intense as it is, since they can attack from range without taking damage).
Necklace of Harmonia (Athena): Every unit on her faction is killed, however your resources are increased by 4x the number of resources required to create each unit.
Serpent (Ares): All bandits on the board join your faction.
And so on and so forth. So when it comes to "artifacts," I was referring to these various kinds of tokens. These aren't things that just come out of the woodwork to mess with you (ruins aside, and those don't have an enormous impact most of the time). They are things that you willingly, intentionally, do to yourself. "Bring me the whipping switch, boy." In order to meet the criteria of your edicts, or complete challenges, or just pursue a high score, these are things you have to inflict on yourself. And then once you've inflicted one thing on yourself, that kind of sets of a chain reaction of things you have to do in order to continuously try to maintain that balance of power.
Round 1 of the game is comparably tame because you don't have any gods or god tokens yet. It's all positioning and setting up your towns, and other moderate effects like the mythological creatures and mythological tokens. You can rack up a lot of success there, and it's an important part of the game, but you're not likely to completely blow your leg off by accident in that round. Once the gods come out... watch out.
Q: I get the impression that a town is a single-tiled object that contained a list of building, and units will spawn from these building. Do they instead sprawl and visibly grow as you develop then?
Yeah, that's a good point -- our screenshots thus far have not shown that, or even the units, for that matter! Will have to rectify that soon. At any rate, town centers are a single tile, and then there are two rings of town buildings possible around them (for a total of 24 buildings that can be ringed around a single TC). We started out with just one ring, aiming for smaller (more specialized) towns, but with just 8 slots for buildings it's impossible to fit everything in. Towns need a variety of buildings to stay healthy and not succumb to crime, bandits, or the other faction.
And that's just the buildings in a town. All of the raw-resource producers (as opposed to "finished goods" producers) are located outside of town. Your chapmen ferry goods from the raw resource producers into the town center, from which the raw resources can be used in any town. The finished goods require a producer in a specific town for when it comes to military units that are auto-produced there, though. So your store of pigs and sheep from outlying pig farms is universal, but your supply of bacon or mutton at a single town depends on the presence of a butcher. Same with the need for fletchers, carpenters, stone masons, and so on and so forth. As you unlock further things, you get into stuff like wells and breweries.
Q: It's clear that there is no doctrine of total-war intrinsic to the people, but they fight and many of the example artifacts boost that rather than work on towns themselves. There also does not seem to be an over-arching empire with each town doing their own thing with every other town (i.e. not killing their allies).
Right. It's a collection of independent towns. There's no organization of the units at all, they all pursue their own independent agendas. The agendas are fairly predictable (except when things get complicated), so you can guide your folks by guiding the circumstances. That's a big part of how you "trick" your guys to doing what you want: give them few options in a given circumstance, or put them into a situation where you can predict their reactions with some fairly high degree of accuracy.
Q: How many god tokens are there versus mythological tokens?
Overall there are 64 tokens, and 48 of them come from the gods. 8 mythological tokens are available to each faction throughout each game, and then a further 3 god tokens are available to each faction per each god they choose (so by round 3, if both your gods are still living at a given faction, you've got 14 tokens total available to you). So it depends on how you look at it: in the course of a given game, the larger number of tokens are actually the mythological ones. But overall the god tokens vastly outnumber the mythological ones.
Q: Whenever I'm describing AI War to people, the part I always talk about is the attack on the AI Home Fortress: my fleet of thousands upon thousands of ships, firing everything they've got at this massive, impenetrable shield while the AI's gigantic guns hammer back. Dozens or hundreds of ships dying with every blast of the fortress's cannons. That, for me, is the defining moment of that game: the experience it offers that no other game does. Is there a similar defining moment for Skyward Collapse, and if so, what is it?
It's hard to say, honestly. Even with AI War, it's hard to say to some extent -- that's the defining moment for you when it comes to AI War, but to me that's just kind of the last formality. It's not that victory at the end of a long game is a formality, as you know (unlike other RTS games), but what I mean is that it's just not that exciting for me. What I love most in AI War is split between the early and middle game: a) I really love the expansion into nearby planets, and the sense of that "gold rush" to set up an early empire based on what I find before the AI can really react; and b) I absolutely love the back-and-forth in the middle of the game, when I am overreaching myself a bit and the AI and I are trading control (militarily speaking) of a central planet or two while I look for further targets to jump off to.
In other words, I think that the defining aspect of the AI War experience is that it makes you feel like an awesome space commander, based on what most people have said and how I myself feel. But what evokes that feeling most varies from person to person. I think that some people get that feeling most just from the mere fact of playing 10/10 difficulty games and being in a constant struggle with the AI. So in other words, I think that the defining feature is more of an emotion, more of an abstract feeling, rather than a specific event -- when you're talking about general people, not a specific individual.
Speaking of Skyward itself... I think that the emotion (to me) boils down to a few things:
1. Building a really pretty and satisfyingly functional landscape.
2. Having the godlike power to really smash up anything I feel like. If bandits are really giving me problems, I have some pretty huge things I can use against them if I've played it smart up until that point. In other words, really feeling somewhat all-powerful despite the challenges and constraints that are put on you.
3. Figuring out ways to kick myself in the teeth as hard as I can, and then get back up and use that as an actual advantage. Most of the god powers, in some senses, are a kick in the teeth. Josh has actually been a bit worried that people won't use the more powerful ones, some of which I detailed above. Those things are devastating to whatever you were doing. But the thing is, if you want to win and win well, there's so much cleverness you can exercise with those god powers. Which gods you choose matters, and which god powers you activate when matters, and how you set up your towns prior, during, and after that matters. You can do all sorts of (for lack of a better term) combos with those pieces, to get desired effects. To me this sort of thing is fun, because I'm setting the bar higher and higher for myself, and then struggling to reach it. The edicts and so forth set minimum bars, and the challenges cause you added troubles if you reach for too many at once, but there's also a certain "what awesomeness can I pull off today" aspect to the game, which gets expressed as a high score. Normally I'm not the sort to care about scores, but I think it's more interesting here.
4. Speaking of emotions, this game is mostly pretty chill. Like Sim City or Pharaoh or Civilization, I find all those games pretty relaxed. They are turn-based, the music isn't trying to freak you out, and the pace and scale is such that you can understand things from the starting small scale and then all along as the scale grows. It's really different from AI War where it's hugely intimidating from the start, both in terms of complexity (as a new player) and in terms of the scenario (in terms of your odds of winning even if you are extremely experienced). That is in no way saying that Skyward is an easy game (heck, SimCity and Civilization are both extremely difficult, or can be), but I think that being fairly chill is common to most simulation games and god games. Sure there are times when you are ripping your hair out or screaming at the screen, but it's different from being on a clock or being David vs Goliath. I don't think I expressed myself very well on this point, but hopefully that makes some semblance of sense.
Q: Just to clarify. Are you actually building the continent? Or are you just building on it?
Yes, you are building the continent itself. You can't place buildings on existing land, for instance. Instead, you place pieces of land that have buildings on them, making the continent bigger. You can also directly place land pieces yourself, or smite them and replace them (which sometimes you want or do not want a mountain range, or want to use some marshes to your advantage, or whatever).
Q: At the moment, I don't quite see how the replayability will be extended beyond the number of edicts I choose to take and the units I can set loose. Does the creator controls almost every variable in the eponymous creation of the island? Where are the potential sources of randomization?
In terms of controlling every variable: no, you don't. Most of the land tiles that pop up are not by your choosing, and the bandits popping in are also not by your choosing. We also have some other stuff that we probably won't introduce before profiles reach a few levels in (to give players a bit of breathing room at the start). Josh and I have talked about a "suggestions" mechanic from The Master, but lately I've been thinking a "propositions" (not in that sense) mechanic from units themselves might be more interesting.
There's also randomization in a very butterfly-effect sort of fashion. In other words, just having a few tiles different, or a guy making a random roll slightly differently, means that the outcomes are different. For instance, I had a scenario that I was testing just last night to make sure something worked: Adamantine, a mythological token. It gives the one dude who picks it up 100x his normal health and attack -- holy heck, right!? But it also spawns 20 bandits at the end of that turn. In one outing of this, he killed all the bandits within a few turns and had 65% of his health remaining. In another 14/20 of the bandits were remaining after he died. The difference there was both in which bandits appeared, and where.
Anyhow, there are already a triumvirate of goals in any game as it stands:
1. Make it to the end without failing your edicts or having genocide.
2. Make the highest score possible... because, come on, it shows you're awesome. ;)
3. Work on the 100 challenges, which unlock new stuff, and which are not something you'll blow through in a couple of hours.
In other words, for $5 the replay value is completely off the hook. I wouldn't say that it has AI War levels of replayability by any stretch, but neither did AI War when AI War first came out. If Skyward takes off, I hope to do with this what we've done with AI War, in terms of the combination of free DLC and paid DLC to keep it growing for a long time
Q: When I create the island, do I play a game of Carcassone with all the tiles in my hand?
It's funny you mention the randomization of what you can place in Carcassone-like fashion. That's exactly how this game started and was conceived. And oh MAN was it not fun.
Q: Or do I play whatever is available to me at the time so I can't easily do things like place village on hill -> make killzone with marsh -> stock archers -> village become invincible to melee units.
Bear in mind that everything costs resources, and you are pursuing multiple objectives at once. If you had no secondary objectives, then sure you could just set up a stalemate in various ways and everyone would be safe and happy. However, if you don't create military units then your cities crumble into crime. And your military units won't stay still if they have access to enemy towns or enemies in general: they will run off and attack. So that archery stronghold you mentioned would instead be a breeding ground for archers running around the map, not staying where you wanted them to. If those archers prove TOO effective, you're going to be struggling against yourself on the other side to fix what you just wrought.
On the other hand, if you block off your archers so that they can't reach the enemies directly but can just shoot at them, that actually would work... for a little while, until you die. ;) See, the military units won't actually move unless they have an enemy in their sight range or an enemy town center that they can path to. So if you make the enemy fortifications perfect, you'll get a backup blockage of guys in your "perfectly safe" town. That sounds fine, until you learn that more than one unit can't stand on a tile. And that military production facilities can't produce units while someone is standing on them. And then you remember the crime factor, and in a dozen or so turns that perfectly safe town belongs to the bandits from forces within.
The whole "do I do whatever I want" sort of argument is kind of like saying the same thing in any any strategy game. And I know the next argument in that: "but you're playing against a (human or AI) opponent there, rather than playing both sides." Which is true, but here you are playing against an equally challenging... let's call it "environmental situation." If you just doodle around, the game kills you.
Q: I can bring into being any god in every game?
Yes, but for purposes of challenges and otherwise you're encouraged to choose different ones at different times. Also, depending on the map or on other circumstances (ie what else you are trying to accomplish in a specific game), you'll find that some gods are way better suited for some things than others. Lots of bandits around? Yeah, you're going to pick Ares most likely. Working on lots of trade? Foolish not to pick Pan.
But the thing is, you're rarely doing just ONE thing at a time if you're playing at an advanced level... so the choices aren't so obvious. Or even if the choice of a god is obvious, choosing when and how to use his/her powers certainly is not.
Q: I foresee complaints along the lines of "I buffed the Greek archers with invincibility, but they didn't go on the attack!" Free-will is a fickle thing.
Your archers will never just sit around if they have any route to enemies. If they are sitting around, it's your fault. The complaints would come in the form of "argh, you made small decision X instead of Y, and now my larger schemes need some adjusting." That's part of what Josh and I both were adamant the game needed somewhat predictable AI in the units. If you have archers, and they have somewhere to go, you can be 100% sure they will start heading out. Which exact place they go, or who they meet and how they fight along the way... that's a different matter. But since this plays out over turns, you can kind of see how things are developing and airdrop minotaurs or whatever where needed. ;)
The free will here isn't terribly fickle: it's where the rand() you're looking for comes from.
Q: The AI is sounding a lot like Dwarf Fortress'. The potential for carnage is unlimited!
DF is a lot more complex in that you can set rules for individual dwarves, whereas here the rules are built into the unit type from the get-go. But otherwise, yeah; I think there's some similarity there.
Note: these are all taken out of context, and were originally comments where we are soliciting criticism of our marketing copy. None of these questions were asked in an antagonistic spirit.
Q: You've mentioned "Villages," which sounds kind of tiny and small scale, like I'm giving Bob the farmer a pitchfork to go stab Cletus on his donkey.
Well... this is a good point in some ways, but in other ways you've about got the right of it. Maybe "towns" instead of villages would give a better impression. This is not an all-out war on the scale of something like AI War, where there are vast armies going around. You are training professional military units, it's true, along with mythological creatures that do great harm. And it's also true that there are bandits that pop out to get you, etc. That said, this isn't army-on-army battle. It's about individual units running around and doing stuff for the short while that they survive, generally. ;)
In other words, the combat is consistent and potentially intense, but the scale of the units never gets too huge (that would also get tedious). In some respects that makes this a bit like a tactics game, except you can't control the tactics and you're using strategy to make the tactics play out (most likely) how you want. But I've drifted off point: what I originally was trying to say that the combat tends to stay small-scale because guys don't live very long. They're all bloodthirsty, and you can't tell them not to fight, so only one of two things are going to happen: a) they are going to go ravage the other side's towns while you do nothing; b) you're going to help the other side raise a counter-force and thus that first bloodthirsty dude is going to die. And back and forth from there.
Anyhow, there's also a distinct town-on-town flavor here. You can build multiple towns per faction (and in longer games, will need to), and each town pretty much just wars (or tries for diplomacy) with its nearest neighbor. If one town falls then it flips allegiances, and the balance of power swings pretty heavily. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you're going to wield your god powers. At any rate, it makes the town-on-town aspect pretty important.
Q: You've mentioned "artifacts" a few times, but what really are those?
1. Mythological Tokens (Global Effect): These are kind of like "global enchantments" in MTG. Basically, you place one of these for a faction (at a hefty specialized resource cost), and then something happens to all your dudes (or all the enemy dudes, or all buildings of a certain sort, or whatever) for X number of turns. Typically something substantial changes for 3-5 turns.
2. Mythological Tokens (Unit Pickups): These are kind of like "enchant creatures" in MTG. You place one of these for a faction (again at a hefty specialized resource cost)... and then various units vie for it. Typically the first 5 units of either side (or bandits) to reach it will get whatever the bonus is. Some of them are limited to only ranged units or only mythological creatures or whatever, so everyone else ignores it. But these things confer a permanent status effect of some sort onto the units that pick them up, making them more powerful in some unique way.
3. Ruins (Unit Pickups): Sometimes you can control these, a lot of times (depending on the map type) they just pop up themselves. These work basically like mythological tokens in that they give status bonuses to the first 5 dudes to reach them. Anybody but a god can go visit these, and will, of their own accord. There's a set list of more generic bonuses here, rather than the faction-specific stuff from the mythological tokens. But these upgrades can still swing the normal balance of power around in a moderate fashion for a short while.
Thus far, the first three things we've talked about are all "moderate effects" for the most part. These have a sizable effect on the game, but it's not nuclear-warhead levels of drastic.
4. God Tokens: Each god has 3 of these, so there are 48 of them in all. There are a very small number of duplicates between gods (maybe 6-8 out of 48, I've not counted it up), but the gods themselves are all unique. These god tokens range from "very serious" in consequences to "cataclysmic." Holy moly are these OP. That's not exploitable, that's actually a problem for you since you're trying to maintain balance. But if you want to really do well, you need to use these things... and then figure out how to recover from what you just did to yourself. ;) The mechanic is that the god related to the token immediately seeks it out once you place it, and then when they reach it the effect immediately happens.
A few example god tokens:
Mjolnir (Thor): When he reaches Mjolnir, he immediately destroys the entire nearest enemy town, including the town center. This token cannot be placed on a building.
Reginnaglar (Njord): All allied buildings that currently exist get a permanent 100% bonus to their health based on their base health.
Skadi's Skis (Skadi): All allied units currently on the board gain the power to cross mountains at no movement penalty.
Gjallarhorn (Heimdall): All non-god units on the map, allied, enemy, and bandit -- all get killed at once, and his faction gets the destruction points for all of them. (This is the horn he blows at the start of the end of the world, in mythology).
Bow (Apollo): All allied archery range units on the board at the time become invulnerable for 10 turns. (Um... ow. Archery units are already really intense as it is, since they can attack from range without taking damage).
Necklace of Harmonia (Athena): Every unit on her faction is killed, however your resources are increased by 4x the number of resources required to create each unit.
Serpent (Ares): All bandits on the board join your faction.
And so on and so forth. So when it comes to "artifacts," I was referring to these various kinds of tokens. These aren't things that just come out of the woodwork to mess with you (ruins aside, and those don't have an enormous impact most of the time). They are things that you willingly, intentionally, do to yourself. "Bring me the whipping switch, boy." In order to meet the criteria of your edicts, or complete challenges, or just pursue a high score, these are things you have to inflict on yourself. And then once you've inflicted one thing on yourself, that kind of sets of a chain reaction of things you have to do in order to continuously try to maintain that balance of power.
Round 1 of the game is comparably tame because you don't have any gods or god tokens yet. It's all positioning and setting up your towns, and other moderate effects like the mythological creatures and mythological tokens. You can rack up a lot of success there, and it's an important part of the game, but you're not likely to completely blow your leg off by accident in that round. Once the gods come out... watch out.
Q: I get the impression that a town is a single-tiled object that contained a list of building, and units will spawn from these building. Do they instead sprawl and visibly grow as you develop then?
Yeah, that's a good point -- our screenshots thus far have not shown that, or even the units, for that matter! Will have to rectify that soon. At any rate, town centers are a single tile, and then there are two rings of town buildings possible around them (for a total of 24 buildings that can be ringed around a single TC). We started out with just one ring, aiming for smaller (more specialized) towns, but with just 8 slots for buildings it's impossible to fit everything in. Towns need a variety of buildings to stay healthy and not succumb to crime, bandits, or the other faction.
And that's just the buildings in a town. All of the raw-resource producers (as opposed to "finished goods" producers) are located outside of town. Your chapmen ferry goods from the raw resource producers into the town center, from which the raw resources can be used in any town. The finished goods require a producer in a specific town for when it comes to military units that are auto-produced there, though. So your store of pigs and sheep from outlying pig farms is universal, but your supply of bacon or mutton at a single town depends on the presence of a butcher. Same with the need for fletchers, carpenters, stone masons, and so on and so forth. As you unlock further things, you get into stuff like wells and breweries.
Q: It's clear that there is no doctrine of total-war intrinsic to the people, but they fight and many of the example artifacts boost that rather than work on towns themselves. There also does not seem to be an over-arching empire with each town doing their own thing with every other town (i.e. not killing their allies).
Right. It's a collection of independent towns. There's no organization of the units at all, they all pursue their own independent agendas. The agendas are fairly predictable (except when things get complicated), so you can guide your folks by guiding the circumstances. That's a big part of how you "trick" your guys to doing what you want: give them few options in a given circumstance, or put them into a situation where you can predict their reactions with some fairly high degree of accuracy.
Q: How many god tokens are there versus mythological tokens?
Overall there are 64 tokens, and 48 of them come from the gods. 8 mythological tokens are available to each faction throughout each game, and then a further 3 god tokens are available to each faction per each god they choose (so by round 3, if both your gods are still living at a given faction, you've got 14 tokens total available to you). So it depends on how you look at it: in the course of a given game, the larger number of tokens are actually the mythological ones. But overall the god tokens vastly outnumber the mythological ones.
Q: Whenever I'm describing AI War to people, the part I always talk about is the attack on the AI Home Fortress: my fleet of thousands upon thousands of ships, firing everything they've got at this massive, impenetrable shield while the AI's gigantic guns hammer back. Dozens or hundreds of ships dying with every blast of the fortress's cannons. That, for me, is the defining moment of that game: the experience it offers that no other game does. Is there a similar defining moment for Skyward Collapse, and if so, what is it?
It's hard to say, honestly. Even with AI War, it's hard to say to some extent -- that's the defining moment for you when it comes to AI War, but to me that's just kind of the last formality. It's not that victory at the end of a long game is a formality, as you know (unlike other RTS games), but what I mean is that it's just not that exciting for me. What I love most in AI War is split between the early and middle game: a) I really love the expansion into nearby planets, and the sense of that "gold rush" to set up an early empire based on what I find before the AI can really react; and b) I absolutely love the back-and-forth in the middle of the game, when I am overreaching myself a bit and the AI and I are trading control (militarily speaking) of a central planet or two while I look for further targets to jump off to.
In other words, I think that the defining aspect of the AI War experience is that it makes you feel like an awesome space commander, based on what most people have said and how I myself feel. But what evokes that feeling most varies from person to person. I think that some people get that feeling most just from the mere fact of playing 10/10 difficulty games and being in a constant struggle with the AI. So in other words, I think that the defining feature is more of an emotion, more of an abstract feeling, rather than a specific event -- when you're talking about general people, not a specific individual.
Speaking of Skyward itself... I think that the emotion (to me) boils down to a few things:
1. Building a really pretty and satisfyingly functional landscape.
2. Having the godlike power to really smash up anything I feel like. If bandits are really giving me problems, I have some pretty huge things I can use against them if I've played it smart up until that point. In other words, really feeling somewhat all-powerful despite the challenges and constraints that are put on you.
3. Figuring out ways to kick myself in the teeth as hard as I can, and then get back up and use that as an actual advantage. Most of the god powers, in some senses, are a kick in the teeth. Josh has actually been a bit worried that people won't use the more powerful ones, some of which I detailed above. Those things are devastating to whatever you were doing. But the thing is, if you want to win and win well, there's so much cleverness you can exercise with those god powers. Which gods you choose matters, and which god powers you activate when matters, and how you set up your towns prior, during, and after that matters. You can do all sorts of (for lack of a better term) combos with those pieces, to get desired effects. To me this sort of thing is fun, because I'm setting the bar higher and higher for myself, and then struggling to reach it. The edicts and so forth set minimum bars, and the challenges cause you added troubles if you reach for too many at once, but there's also a certain "what awesomeness can I pull off today" aspect to the game, which gets expressed as a high score. Normally I'm not the sort to care about scores, but I think it's more interesting here.
4. Speaking of emotions, this game is mostly pretty chill. Like Sim City or Pharaoh or Civilization, I find all those games pretty relaxed. They are turn-based, the music isn't trying to freak you out, and the pace and scale is such that you can understand things from the starting small scale and then all along as the scale grows. It's really different from AI War where it's hugely intimidating from the start, both in terms of complexity (as a new player) and in terms of the scenario (in terms of your odds of winning even if you are extremely experienced). That is in no way saying that Skyward is an easy game (heck, SimCity and Civilization are both extremely difficult, or can be), but I think that being fairly chill is common to most simulation games and god games. Sure there are times when you are ripping your hair out or screaming at the screen, but it's different from being on a clock or being David vs Goliath. I don't think I expressed myself very well on this point, but hopefully that makes some semblance of sense.
Q: Just to clarify. Are you actually building the continent? Or are you just building on it?
Yes, you are building the continent itself. You can't place buildings on existing land, for instance. Instead, you place pieces of land that have buildings on them, making the continent bigger. You can also directly place land pieces yourself, or smite them and replace them (which sometimes you want or do not want a mountain range, or want to use some marshes to your advantage, or whatever).
Q: At the moment, I don't quite see how the replayability will be extended beyond the number of edicts I choose to take and the units I can set loose. Does the creator controls almost every variable in the eponymous creation of the island? Where are the potential sources of randomization?
In terms of controlling every variable: no, you don't. Most of the land tiles that pop up are not by your choosing, and the bandits popping in are also not by your choosing. We also have some other stuff that we probably won't introduce before profiles reach a few levels in (to give players a bit of breathing room at the start). Josh and I have talked about a "suggestions" mechanic from The Master, but lately I've been thinking a "propositions" (not in that sense) mechanic from units themselves might be more interesting.
There's also randomization in a very butterfly-effect sort of fashion. In other words, just having a few tiles different, or a guy making a random roll slightly differently, means that the outcomes are different. For instance, I had a scenario that I was testing just last night to make sure something worked: Adamantine, a mythological token. It gives the one dude who picks it up 100x his normal health and attack -- holy heck, right!? But it also spawns 20 bandits at the end of that turn. In one outing of this, he killed all the bandits within a few turns and had 65% of his health remaining. In another 14/20 of the bandits were remaining after he died. The difference there was both in which bandits appeared, and where.
Anyhow, there are already a triumvirate of goals in any game as it stands:
1. Make it to the end without failing your edicts or having genocide.
2. Make the highest score possible... because, come on, it shows you're awesome. ;)
3. Work on the 100 challenges, which unlock new stuff, and which are not something you'll blow through in a couple of hours.
In other words, for $5 the replay value is completely off the hook. I wouldn't say that it has AI War levels of replayability by any stretch, but neither did AI War when AI War first came out. If Skyward takes off, I hope to do with this what we've done with AI War, in terms of the combination of free DLC and paid DLC to keep it growing for a long time
Q: When I create the island, do I play a game of Carcassone with all the tiles in my hand?
It's funny you mention the randomization of what you can place in Carcassone-like fashion. That's exactly how this game started and was conceived. And oh MAN was it not fun.
Q: Or do I play whatever is available to me at the time so I can't easily do things like place village on hill -> make killzone with marsh -> stock archers -> village become invincible to melee units.
Bear in mind that everything costs resources, and you are pursuing multiple objectives at once. If you had no secondary objectives, then sure you could just set up a stalemate in various ways and everyone would be safe and happy. However, if you don't create military units then your cities crumble into crime. And your military units won't stay still if they have access to enemy towns or enemies in general: they will run off and attack. So that archery stronghold you mentioned would instead be a breeding ground for archers running around the map, not staying where you wanted them to. If those archers prove TOO effective, you're going to be struggling against yourself on the other side to fix what you just wrought.
On the other hand, if you block off your archers so that they can't reach the enemies directly but can just shoot at them, that actually would work... for a little while, until you die. ;) See, the military units won't actually move unless they have an enemy in their sight range or an enemy town center that they can path to. So if you make the enemy fortifications perfect, you'll get a backup blockage of guys in your "perfectly safe" town. That sounds fine, until you learn that more than one unit can't stand on a tile. And that military production facilities can't produce units while someone is standing on them. And then you remember the crime factor, and in a dozen or so turns that perfectly safe town belongs to the bandits from forces within.
The whole "do I do whatever I want" sort of argument is kind of like saying the same thing in any any strategy game. And I know the next argument in that: "but you're playing against a (human or AI) opponent there, rather than playing both sides." Which is true, but here you are playing against an equally challenging... let's call it "environmental situation." If you just doodle around, the game kills you.
Q: I can bring into being any god in every game?
Yes, but for purposes of challenges and otherwise you're encouraged to choose different ones at different times. Also, depending on the map or on other circumstances (ie what else you are trying to accomplish in a specific game), you'll find that some gods are way better suited for some things than others. Lots of bandits around? Yeah, you're going to pick Ares most likely. Working on lots of trade? Foolish not to pick Pan.
But the thing is, you're rarely doing just ONE thing at a time if you're playing at an advanced level... so the choices aren't so obvious. Or even if the choice of a god is obvious, choosing when and how to use his/her powers certainly is not.
Q: I foresee complaints along the lines of "I buffed the Greek archers with invincibility, but they didn't go on the attack!" Free-will is a fickle thing.
Your archers will never just sit around if they have any route to enemies. If they are sitting around, it's your fault. The complaints would come in the form of "argh, you made small decision X instead of Y, and now my larger schemes need some adjusting." That's part of what Josh and I both were adamant the game needed somewhat predictable AI in the units. If you have archers, and they have somewhere to go, you can be 100% sure they will start heading out. Which exact place they go, or who they meet and how they fight along the way... that's a different matter. But since this plays out over turns, you can kind of see how things are developing and airdrop minotaurs or whatever where needed. ;)
The free will here isn't terribly fickle: it's where the rand() you're looking for comes from.
Q: The AI is sounding a lot like Dwarf Fortress'. The potential for carnage is unlimited!
DF is a lot more complex in that you can set rules for individual dwarves, whereas here the rules are built into the unit type from the get-go. But otherwise, yeah; I think there's some similarity there.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Skyward Collapse Wallpaper
Skyward Collapse is heading to 1.0 in just about a month, and beta within about two weeks. We'll have more details on the game as we get closer and closer to that time, plus a few other surprises that I think you'll find very fun.
In the meantime, I'd like to share with you this awesome wallpaper that was created by our very own Daniette "Blue" Wood. I haven't officially announced this before, and should have, but we have a new art director! You can read a bit about her on our About Us page. Folks in the forums for the game have been enjoying periodically getting to watch her livestream her work on this particular piece.
This wallpaper is also the background of the main menu for the game, and you'll be seeing it as the main "promo art" for the game in general. Click on the above image to get the full-size 1920x1080 version for you to download. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Apparently blogger sized down the image to 1600x900 without my realizing it. I've uploaded the full-size version on the forum thread about this post.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Skyward Collapse Teaser 2: Unit Sketches and More Details
So, we recently announced Skyward Collapse. If you missed it, it's something we're really excited about.
However, we only showed a single screenshot with some of the final-quality map tiles, tokens, and skies in them. Needless to say, the rest of the art is still in various states of completion, ranging from sketches to coloring to getting final polish on it. We have a great pipeline going with about 11 artists (10 at Heavy Cat, and then our new art director Blue on our side), so that's all proceeding well.
When it comes to the units themselves -- all the Greek and Norse people and gods that move around the map like boardgame pieces each turn -- we haven't shown anything with them until now. We're still working on the final coloring style for them, so I don't want to show any of the colored ones yet.
That said, we have a lot of wonderful sketches of them that will be directly translated into the final unit graphics shown in-game (in other words, these are more than concept sketches -- they are the actual graphics that will be used in the game, minus color and shading, at a larger scale than you'll see in the final game).
Norse Chapman -- The chapmen are the main civilian workers for each faction. Their primary responsibility is carrying raw resources from the resource producers to the town centers. The raw resources themselves are produced by different civilians (unseen in the buildings that they work in, though you have to staff those buildings), and the finished goods are created in a similar way in the town buildings related to each kind of finished good.
Norse Arsonist -- Since there's a limit to how many siege-type weapons the Norse actually historically used (that just wasn't their main fighting style), we had to get a bit creative. While our game is historically-based in some ways, it's also set in a fantasy world that is merely inspired by those civilizations. That gives us some creative license. In this particular case, we didn't have to take that much. The arsonists are considered a "siege unit," and their primary purpose is setting enemy buildings on fire. The buildings then take damage over time, while the arsonist moves from building to building in the enemy town or territory.
Norse Berserk -- Give these guys some bacon and weapons, and they're ready to rock. The Norse don't have any cavalry at all in this game, but they make up for it with several intimidating kinds of infantry. The Greeks and the Norse have very different units all around! Even their chapmen have different stats.
Pan (Greek) -- This is one of the Greek gods that you can choose to call to your aid as the game progresses. The gods all stand taller than the regular units (fit into a 128x128 square instead of a 96x96 square), making them more obviously and imposing.
Zeus (Greek) -- Here's an obvious example of one of the four "greater gods" that you get to choose from at the start of the third round of each game. The greater gods are a lot more powerful and have a big impact on the game... but each side has one!
About That Whole "Peacekeeping" Thing
We've had a lot of awesome coverage for the game already, for which we're extremely grateful! That said, there is a bit of a misconception based on my first blog post about this (which is my own fault) about your actual role as The Creator.
Basically, the perception was that you're in a peacekeeping role where you're trying to keep the two factions from fighting. This actually isn't remotely true: you want those dudes fighting as much as possible if you want a real score. What you're trying to prevent is genocide, or one side thoroughly dominating the other.
You want both sides to have some heavy warfare, in other words, in order to get the maximum sort of score. But while you're doing that, you want to prevent the following:
- One side obliterating the other (you lose if this happens).
- One side getting far ahead of the other (your final score is likely to be quite bad if this happens).
- Either side getting their economy so crippled that it's hard for them to carry on with their warfare (again, your final score is likely to suffer quite a bit, and/or the risk of genocide goes up).
Think of this kind of like the hundred years war, not the cold war. This isn't about creating an uneasy armistice with spots of minor conflict here and there; it's about creating all-out war (on a village-versus-village scale) with possible periods of calm (where the sides are rebuilding as needed). As a supreme being, you're not exactly that... benevolent.
Why is this distinction important? Well, the implications are pretty huge, really: your job is that much harder. If you're trying to maintain an armistice, that only involves so many moving parts. If you're trying to maintain heavy warfare while not absolutely crippling critical infrastructure or allowing either side to overtake the other too much... well, there are a lot more moving parts there.
Overall I think the press still has a pretty good bead on what this game is in general, but that was one point I thought worth clarifying!
However, we only showed a single screenshot with some of the final-quality map tiles, tokens, and skies in them. Needless to say, the rest of the art is still in various states of completion, ranging from sketches to coloring to getting final polish on it. We have a great pipeline going with about 11 artists (10 at Heavy Cat, and then our new art director Blue on our side), so that's all proceeding well.
When it comes to the units themselves -- all the Greek and Norse people and gods that move around the map like boardgame pieces each turn -- we haven't shown anything with them until now. We're still working on the final coloring style for them, so I don't want to show any of the colored ones yet.
That said, we have a lot of wonderful sketches of them that will be directly translated into the final unit graphics shown in-game (in other words, these are more than concept sketches -- they are the actual graphics that will be used in the game, minus color and shading, at a larger scale than you'll see in the final game).
Pan (Greek) -- This is one of the Greek gods that you can choose to call to your aid as the game progresses. The gods all stand taller than the regular units (fit into a 128x128 square instead of a 96x96 square), making them more obviously and imposing.
About That Whole "Peacekeeping" Thing
We've had a lot of awesome coverage for the game already, for which we're extremely grateful! That said, there is a bit of a misconception based on my first blog post about this (which is my own fault) about your actual role as The Creator.
Basically, the perception was that you're in a peacekeeping role where you're trying to keep the two factions from fighting. This actually isn't remotely true: you want those dudes fighting as much as possible if you want a real score. What you're trying to prevent is genocide, or one side thoroughly dominating the other.
You want both sides to have some heavy warfare, in other words, in order to get the maximum sort of score. But while you're doing that, you want to prevent the following:
- One side obliterating the other (you lose if this happens).
- One side getting far ahead of the other (your final score is likely to be quite bad if this happens).
- Either side getting their economy so crippled that it's hard for them to carry on with their warfare (again, your final score is likely to suffer quite a bit, and/or the risk of genocide goes up).
Think of this kind of like the hundred years war, not the cold war. This isn't about creating an uneasy armistice with spots of minor conflict here and there; it's about creating all-out war (on a village-versus-village scale) with possible periods of calm (where the sides are rebuilding as needed). As a supreme being, you're not exactly that... benevolent.
Why is this distinction important? Well, the implications are pretty huge, really: your job is that much harder. If you're trying to maintain an armistice, that only involves so many moving parts. If you're trying to maintain heavy warfare while not absolutely crippling critical infrastructure or allowing either side to overtake the other too much... well, there are a lot more moving parts there.
Overall I think the press still has a pretty good bead on what this game is in general, but that was one point I thought worth clarifying!
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Skyward Collapse Teaser 1
Purely by coincidence, it's been exactly two weeks since we did our first teaser for our upcoming game Exodus of the Machine. But did you know we're actually working on two new titles at the moment?
Our second upcoming game is called Skyward Collapse, and it's just now reaching a point where we're ready to show our first screenshot of it. Aside from overlaying the logo in the lower left corner, this is exactly how the current build of the game looks as of about 10 minutes ago:
So just what is Skyward Collapse? It's a turn-based 4x simulation god-game.
Overall Gameplay
Set high in the sky atop a floating landmass that you are actively constructing as the game progresses, you oversee two warring factions (Greeks and Norse). Via solo play or co-op, you play as "The Creator," helping both sides of the conflict -- granting each side buildings, resources, and even new citizens.
However, the multitude of villages you create all have minds of their own, and will actively try to stomp the nearest still-standing village of the other faction. Given the resources and appropriate buildings, your villagers will gear up for war without your direct interaction, and will fight it out to the best of their abilities.
Unlike most strategy games, your goal isn't to have either of the sides win. "You" aren't represented by either of the sides, after all. Instead your goal is to balance this conflict as best you can so that neither side gets wiped out. You win by having the most points generated (read: most carnage) without either side committing genocide.
But you can't just strip them of the ability to gear up for war: roaming bandits make defense essential. Not to mention, crime in each village goes up and up the longer it's without a military presence, until it collapses into anarchy. You can construct embassies and assign traveling diplomats to them in an effort to reach a state of enlightenment where crime is no longer a threat, but this is difficult and only affects the two villages that are undergoing peace talks; their neighbors will remain as warlike as ever!
UPDATE: While we hadn't originally planned this, because of reader comments in a variety of places we've decided that we'll be adding a way to lose a campaign. Here is our current brainstorming on how to lose.
Game Structure And Objectives
Gameplay takes place over three rounds (with a brief setup round occurring prior to that), each with a fixed number of turns that you can choose when you start the game. During the time before your game ends, the goal is to get the highest possible score: your overall score is based on the lowest score of the two factions, so again keeping them in balance is key.
As you play, you'll also be trying to complete various meta-missions to increase your personal rank. Every 10 missions you complete, you unlock not only the next rank, but also a new building for your towns!
Units, Economy, and Mythology
Oh, did I mention mythology yet? Looks like not. During the first round of the game, it's mostly just you and your villagers. You can also directly summon certain powerful mythological creatures like minotaurs or the midgard serpent and so on, but these cost a lot of specialized resources that it takes a while to build up.
In round 2, you get to choose a Lesser God for each of the two factions. Hermes, Idunn, etc. Which one you choose out of your four options (per faction) has a big impact on how the rest of the game plays out. Then when round 3 starts, you get to choose a Greater God to go along with them. Zeus, Thor, and so on. There's four choices per side here, too.
All in all the economic and military options are what you'd expect for a simulation game, but it's also probably our most streamlined game ever. Easy to pick up, but there are already some really tricky advanced strategies that we've been coming up with.
Advanced Strategy Example
As one example of an advanced strategy: normally you can't control what units are being produced at, say, a barracks. There are four units that get created in rotation at the barracks, archery ranges, and siege workshops (four per building, all unique per side, I mean).
So there's no control there for you: presuming that the resources are in place for the next unit in the rotation, it just creates that unit. For a novice player, there's nothing here to think about, and it's all very simple. The barracks do what the barracks do.
However, the tricky part is that if you don't have the resources for the next unit in the rotation, then it keeps checking the other potential units in the queue until it finds one that it can create. Do you see the trick now?
I suppose I also now need to mention that there are a lot of resources in the game. Both "raw resources" which are collected and stored globally per faction, and then "finished goods" that are created on-demand by specialist craftsmen in an individual village. Pigs are a good example of a raw resource, whereas bacon is a finished good.
Currently there are 15 raw resources, and 11 finished goods. We're still polishing the exact mix of all those, though, so that may increase slightly by the time beta starts. If that sounds overwhelming, it's not: the resources all have clearly-defined straightforward ways of being produced, and clearly-defined ways of being used. Mostly your choice of how you gather and refine resources boils down to what you're trying to accomplish for a given faction or a specific village. The resource production pipeline is actually one of your primary ways of exerting indirect control over your factions.
See the advanced strategy now? Each unit at a military training facility has at least one resource that is unique to it, as well as some that are common to all of the units in that facility. Therefore, you can control what units get produced in the rotation based on which finished goods you make available to that village. Even better, you can figure out ways to manage the resources such that there are synergies between the different training facilities in a single village.
Other Things
Let's see, there are trading posts with a pretty straightforward trader model (but your traders are at risk of being attacked as they travel, which is what makes it interesting). There are the aforementioned embassies. There are three levels of schools to buff units in the towns containing those schools. There is an (non-visual) upgrade model for all buildings and units.
You can place dozens of "special tokens" that are either general-mythological or specific-god-related. You can smite land tiles, or make "military commandments" that gives some overriding orders to all the units of one faction (so that's a pretty big broadsword to be used carefully).
And there's some other stuff too, but this hits most of the high points from a broad level. We're quite excited to be sharing this with you soon -- hopefully beta will be starting before the end of April, with a 1.0 in May! When we hit beta we'll have everything in place and it will mostly be a matter of balance.
Our second upcoming game is called Skyward Collapse, and it's just now reaching a point where we're ready to show our first screenshot of it. Aside from overlaying the logo in the lower left corner, this is exactly how the current build of the game looks as of about 10 minutes ago:
So just what is Skyward Collapse? It's a turn-based 4x simulation god-game.
Overall Gameplay
Set high in the sky atop a floating landmass that you are actively constructing as the game progresses, you oversee two warring factions (Greeks and Norse). Via solo play or co-op, you play as "The Creator," helping both sides of the conflict -- granting each side buildings, resources, and even new citizens.
However, the multitude of villages you create all have minds of their own, and will actively try to stomp the nearest still-standing village of the other faction. Given the resources and appropriate buildings, your villagers will gear up for war without your direct interaction, and will fight it out to the best of their abilities.
Unlike most strategy games, your goal isn't to have either of the sides win. "You" aren't represented by either of the sides, after all. Instead your goal is to balance this conflict as best you can so that neither side gets wiped out. You win by having the most points generated (read: most carnage) without either side committing genocide.
But you can't just strip them of the ability to gear up for war: roaming bandits make defense essential. Not to mention, crime in each village goes up and up the longer it's without a military presence, until it collapses into anarchy. You can construct embassies and assign traveling diplomats to them in an effort to reach a state of enlightenment where crime is no longer a threat, but this is difficult and only affects the two villages that are undergoing peace talks; their neighbors will remain as warlike as ever!
UPDATE: While we hadn't originally planned this, because of reader comments in a variety of places we've decided that we'll be adding a way to lose a campaign. Here is our current brainstorming on how to lose.
Game Structure And Objectives
Gameplay takes place over three rounds (with a brief setup round occurring prior to that), each with a fixed number of turns that you can choose when you start the game. During the time before your game ends, the goal is to get the highest possible score: your overall score is based on the lowest score of the two factions, so again keeping them in balance is key.
As you play, you'll also be trying to complete various meta-missions to increase your personal rank. Every 10 missions you complete, you unlock not only the next rank, but also a new building for your towns!
Units, Economy, and Mythology
Oh, did I mention mythology yet? Looks like not. During the first round of the game, it's mostly just you and your villagers. You can also directly summon certain powerful mythological creatures like minotaurs or the midgard serpent and so on, but these cost a lot of specialized resources that it takes a while to build up.
In round 2, you get to choose a Lesser God for each of the two factions. Hermes, Idunn, etc. Which one you choose out of your four options (per faction) has a big impact on how the rest of the game plays out. Then when round 3 starts, you get to choose a Greater God to go along with them. Zeus, Thor, and so on. There's four choices per side here, too.
All in all the economic and military options are what you'd expect for a simulation game, but it's also probably our most streamlined game ever. Easy to pick up, but there are already some really tricky advanced strategies that we've been coming up with.
Advanced Strategy Example
As one example of an advanced strategy: normally you can't control what units are being produced at, say, a barracks. There are four units that get created in rotation at the barracks, archery ranges, and siege workshops (four per building, all unique per side, I mean).
So there's no control there for you: presuming that the resources are in place for the next unit in the rotation, it just creates that unit. For a novice player, there's nothing here to think about, and it's all very simple. The barracks do what the barracks do.
However, the tricky part is that if you don't have the resources for the next unit in the rotation, then it keeps checking the other potential units in the queue until it finds one that it can create. Do you see the trick now?
I suppose I also now need to mention that there are a lot of resources in the game. Both "raw resources" which are collected and stored globally per faction, and then "finished goods" that are created on-demand by specialist craftsmen in an individual village. Pigs are a good example of a raw resource, whereas bacon is a finished good.
Currently there are 15 raw resources, and 11 finished goods. We're still polishing the exact mix of all those, though, so that may increase slightly by the time beta starts. If that sounds overwhelming, it's not: the resources all have clearly-defined straightforward ways of being produced, and clearly-defined ways of being used. Mostly your choice of how you gather and refine resources boils down to what you're trying to accomplish for a given faction or a specific village. The resource production pipeline is actually one of your primary ways of exerting indirect control over your factions.
See the advanced strategy now? Each unit at a military training facility has at least one resource that is unique to it, as well as some that are common to all of the units in that facility. Therefore, you can control what units get produced in the rotation based on which finished goods you make available to that village. Even better, you can figure out ways to manage the resources such that there are synergies between the different training facilities in a single village.
Other Things
Let's see, there are trading posts with a pretty straightforward trader model (but your traders are at risk of being attacked as they travel, which is what makes it interesting). There are the aforementioned embassies. There are three levels of schools to buff units in the towns containing those schools. There is an (non-visual) upgrade model for all buildings and units.
You can place dozens of "special tokens" that are either general-mythological or specific-god-related. You can smite land tiles, or make "military commandments" that gives some overriding orders to all the units of one faction (so that's a pretty big broadsword to be used carefully).
And there's some other stuff too, but this hits most of the high points from a broad level. We're quite excited to be sharing this with you soon -- hopefully beta will be starting before the end of April, with a 1.0 in May! When we hit beta we'll have everything in place and it will mostly be a matter of balance.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Exodus Of The Machine Teaser 1
Exodus Of The Machine is a new strategic journey game by Arcen Games, set in the universe of the cult classic AI War: Fleet Command. Lead a team trapped on a hostile planet and desperately pursuing a threat which could destroy humanity outright.
Vicious predators, clashing armies, and political intrigue stand in your way. None can stand before your modern weapons, but where do you use your limited ammunition? Do you resort to diplomacy, or native weapons? Will you fall to disease or run out of food stores? Can you get to the end in time?
Exodus combines Arcen's love of all things strategic within a framework reminiscent of our old favorite Oregon Trail.
This is a title we've been quietly working on. It's "coming soon," which is a vague way of saying that it will be in 2013 but that we don't want to commit to a date yet. We wanted to share a bit with you about what we're working on, but right now the above is all we're comfortable revealing. We'll have something a bit more meaty for you next time!
Vicious predators, clashing armies, and political intrigue stand in your way. None can stand before your modern weapons, but where do you use your limited ammunition? Do you resort to diplomacy, or native weapons? Will you fall to disease or run out of food stores? Can you get to the end in time?
Exodus combines Arcen's love of all things strategic within a framework reminiscent of our old favorite Oregon Trail.
This is a title we've been quietly working on. It's "coming soon," which is a vague way of saying that it will be in 2013 but that we don't want to commit to a date yet. We wanted to share a bit with you about what we're working on, but right now the above is all we're comfortable revealing. We'll have something a bit more meaty for you next time!
Friday, March 22, 2013
Two Shattered Haven Let's Plays With Developer Commentary
If you missed the announcement on our main news blog, Shattered Haven 1.0 is now out! You can pick it up on Steam, Gog.com, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, or the Arcen site.
In this below video, I walk you through parts of two overworld areas, and completes three levels in the Snow Hill section. For those looking to get a better feel for how the game flows, including seeing both single-screen and multi-screen levels, look no further!
The start is a bit slow with some cutscenes, skip ahead to about 3:00 if you just want to get straight to the action.
In this next video below, I walk you through the process of creating a new level using the built-in level editor for the game. This includes doing a bit of minor scripting, even -- definitely a hugely helpful video if you're looking to get into the nitty-gritty of the level editor with Shattered Haven.
This level editor is hugely powerful, and is the same one used to create the intricate levels and storyline of the game itself. If you're into level creation or even adventure design, this editor is a dream come true!
While reviews are still coming in, we were late on getting things to the press because of wanting to get the game polished up before sending it to them. Still, a few choice quotes:
We’ve been talking about Arcen Games for a while now and if there is one thing you can certainly appreciate about them is that every one of their games is a unique product. Shattered Haven which was released this week is a different title from their previous games and may be their strongest showing yet.
-- Josh Bycer, Game Wisdom
Overall, “Shattered Haven” is a solid action / puzzle game that will certainly get the adrenaline pumping. 8/10
-- Dad's Gaming Addiction
Enjoy!
In this below video, I walk you through parts of two overworld areas, and completes three levels in the Snow Hill section. For those looking to get a better feel for how the game flows, including seeing both single-screen and multi-screen levels, look no further!
The start is a bit slow with some cutscenes, skip ahead to about 3:00 if you just want to get straight to the action.
In this next video below, I walk you through the process of creating a new level using the built-in level editor for the game. This includes doing a bit of minor scripting, even -- definitely a hugely helpful video if you're looking to get into the nitty-gritty of the level editor with Shattered Haven.
This level editor is hugely powerful, and is the same one used to create the intricate levels and storyline of the game itself. If you're into level creation or even adventure design, this editor is a dream come true!
While reviews are still coming in, we were late on getting things to the press because of wanting to get the game polished up before sending it to them. Still, a few choice quotes:
We’ve been talking about Arcen Games for a while now and if there is one thing you can certainly appreciate about them is that every one of their games is a unique product. Shattered Haven which was released this week is a different title from their previous games and may be their strongest showing yet.
-- Josh Bycer, Game Wisdom
Overall, “Shattered Haven” is a solid action / puzzle game that will certainly get the adrenaline pumping. 8/10
-- Dad's Gaming Addiction
Enjoy!
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