You know, we started using computers to play these kinds of games to get away from the limitations of board wargames.
And if you want more proof that Civilization IV is still the pinnacle of the series, here it is. Warning, strong but hilarious language.
As for Civilization Facebook (which, yes, I know, is technically called Civilization Network)…I have no problem with it. I probably won’t play it, but I don’t think it’s a travesty that craps on the good name of the series like some people do.
I know this is belated, but thank you guys so much for your kind words and support. You’ve really made this easier.
First, I’d like to talk about Derek Yu. Derek’s a cool and froody dude in the world of independent game development, having designed and done artwork for both Aquaria and Spelunky (which will soon get an Xbox Live incarnation).
Well, Derek’s written a rather excellent article about how to finish making a game.
His advice is excellent.
Here’s why I’m not going to take (most) of it.
It’s because I have…a strategy.
THE STRATEGY (TM) (R) (C) (PG-13) is to finally, finally, finally listen to that voice that’s been telling me “go indie!” for years.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m not looking for a full-time job. I certainly am, and once I find one I will devote all my working energy to doing it as well as I possibly can.
But if you’ll recall, I originally purchased this web space to sell the awesome games I was going to create in my spare time…back in the year 2000.
This web space will finally be put to its original purpose. Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to finish Planitia and charge for it. I said it’d be free, and it will be. But I’m also going to be working on a new game.
And in complete contrariness to Derek’s advice, I’ll be using my own engine (unless one of you knows of a 2D/3D codebase that is absolutely free and cross-compatible between PC, Mac and iPhone/iPad). I won’t be completely rewriting the engine, but these changes will take a good bit of time. (And again, if anyone out there knows a good “convert your Direct3D renderer to OpenGL” tutorial, I’d be grateful.)
I’ll also be scaling up rather than down.
But I don’t want to reveal what my first commercial project is going to be just yet 🙂 Hopefully I’ll have some screenshots for you very soon!
Welcome to Viridian Games.
The games are about to begin.
Just got this comment in a previous post and thought I’d respond here rather than there.
So.
WHAT were you guys thinking, to go around saying it was ready to ship?
Because, y’know, it wasn’t. As just about every review and forum thread is acknowledging, some more heatedly than others. (PC Gamer: “You should not buy it.” Uh, wow. I’ve NEVER seen them be that blunt before.)
Does Stardock have an actual QA department? Is it organizationally independent of development? Are there good lines of communication between QA and the rest of the company? Do they write test plans? Do they run them? How can they test this game and not encounter the problems that were present?
Or is the only testing done by developers in their spare time?
How does something like this happen?
-Rollory
First off, welcome to the site! I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. I’ve got some free games you can try, and if you’re here for the Name That Game! feature, I’ll be posting a new entry later today.
Second, allow me to answer your questions and respond to your statements in the order they were presented.
So.
Nice to meet you too!
WHAT were you guys thinking, to go around saying it was ready to ship?
Brad’s now infamous statement (which you can read here) was made in anger and exhaustion. Brad explains the situation (and apologizes) here.
Because, y’know, it wasn’t. As just about every review and forum thread is acknowledging, some more heatedly than others. (PC Gamer: “You should not buy it.” Uh, wow. I’ve NEVER seen them be that blunt before.)
PCGamer’s most recent article about elemental states “I’m glad Stardock are patching Elemental so quickly after its disastrous early launch, and I’m relieved to finally have the game in a playable state.”
Does Stardock have an actual QA department?
Yes.
Is it organizationally independent of development?
Yes.
Are there good lines of communication between QA and the rest of the company?
Yes. We use Skype chat channels to stay in constant touch and they use Jing to quickly post screenshots and movies of problems so that we developers can see what they are seeing.
Do they write test plans? Do they run them?
Yes and yes.
How can they test this game and not encounter the problems that were present?
And now you have raised my ire. As a former tester I can tell you that testers find bugs; they do not fix them. If bugs exist in a final product they are not the fault of the testers; they are the fault of the developers. Of course they saw the issues. They are not idiots, and I resent your suggestion that they are.
Or is the only testing done by developers in their spare time?
No. Although most of us developers do play the Impulse version in our spare time and keep track of any problems we find.
How does something like this happen?
At last, you have asked a truly salient question (although I’m sure you intended it to be rhetorical.)
“This” happened because it was the lesser evil. Stardock simply does not have the clout to release a retail game during Christmas. Our choices were to launch on August 24th or push the game back to February of next year. Pushing back would have had disastrous consequences for Stardock because of the partnerships we had made and the forfeiture of our retail space.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Well, releasing an incomplete, buggy game is also going to have disastrous consequences!” And thus you’ve hit the crux. We were in a bind, and chose the lesser evil – to release on time and then work like the dickens to get the game to the state we and the players want (instead of, you know, sleeping like most people who have just shipped a game do). Yes, a lot of people have already had a negative initial reaction to the game. There’s nothing we can do about that. But Stardock has a reputation for continually improving their games over the months and years after its release, and we’re continuing that tradition by improving Elemental as quickly as we can and turning it into the game it deserves to be.
-Rollory
Again, welcome to the site, and I’m sure we’ll have lots of spirited debates in the future!
It’s out in both the normal and lovely collector’s edition. Go! Go, my minions and purchase copies!
Now it’s possible I might be able to sleep soon.
Brad has taken to calling Elemental a game where you play, not as an adventurer in a fantasy role-playing game, but as the king who has to (among other things) clean up the messes the adventurers leave behind. A-like so:
If your interest is piqued, join us over at elementalgame.com!
I’m sure you already know this, but it’s a great game – a virtual love letter to the Beatles.
But playing “Paperback Writer” or “Day Tripper” wasn’t the best part.
No, the best part was when my five-year-old cocked her head and said, “This sounds like ‘Band on the Run’.”
She is so smart and I love her so much.
All right, people, here it is. The current source code to Planitia, along with the cut-down, more retro-styled resources. (The previous animated sprites not only didn’t look that good, but they ballooned the project size to over a hundred megs – what the hell was I thinking?!)
Click here to download the latest playable version of Planitia!
Click here to download the source code and resources necessary to get the project running!
Now, having clicked that link, your work here is not done. You will read to the end of this entry before you start asking questions about how to get this working. Okay?
That zip file is going to extract into two directories – one called “Planitia” and one called “Framework”. That’s right kiddies! As a bonus, you get the framework I use to make all my games nowadays.
Here’s what you’ll need to do to get this project working.
Install Visual C++ Express 2008. Yes, I know, Microsoft just released Visual C++ Express 2010 but I haven’t tested with it yet.
Install FMOD EX.
Install a version of the DirectX 9 SDK.
Alter the include and library paths in both the Framework and Planitia projects to point at the local versions of FMOD and DirectX.
Alter the include paths in Planitia to point to the Framework source.
Check Project Dependencies for Planitia and make sure it’s dependent on Framework.
The working folder for Planitia is “Redist”. You’ll probably have to put your versions of fmod.dll and the directx redistributable in there to get your particular compilation working.
I’m sorry I couldn’t make this any simpler, but it shouldn’t be that hard to get running (under Windows, at least).
If you have any questions (that aren’t covered in the above instructions), please feel free to either leave a comment or email me at anthony.salter@gmail.com.
Good luck with the source! And don’t worry, just because I’m releasing the current source doesn’t mean I’m done with Planitia.
EDIT: I have been asked what license this software is being released under. I am releasing it under the Simplified BSD (or FreeBSD License). The upshot is that I retain copyright, but you are free to do anything you wish with this source code (up to and including developing a commercial project with it) as long as you attribute the original source to me. This source is being provided “as-is” and I take no responsibility for any problems you may have with it.
The complete text of the license follows.
Copyright 2010 Anthony Salter. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY ANTHONY SALTER ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL ANTHONY SALTER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies, either expressed or implied, of Anthony Salter.
Okay, I’d been getting this a fair amount after getting a Windows 7 box. I’d install an older game, like Dungeon Keeper or Populous: The Beginning and I’d get very strange colors, sometimes just in the menus but sometimes in the game itself. Annoying, but hey, they’re older games.
Then I reinstalled Starcraft, and the same thing happened.
Now, Starcraft is probably the most reliable piece of software ever written, and watching it come up in psychedelia was painful. I knew there had to be a solution. And there is.
In Vista, right-click your desktop and choose “Personalize” from the resulting menu. In Windows 7, right-click your desktop and choose “Screen Resolution”.
Don’t do anything in these screens; just leave them up.
Run your game. Your colors will be fixed.
Right here. You no longer have any excuse.
I’m going to talk about Hero Core a little more. Because I wanna.
There’s a lot to like about Hero Core. It may be the most perfect one-man band game I’ve ever played (although technically it’s two men because the music was done by Brother Android). It’s a perfect study in overcoming the limits of your own abilities to produce greatness.
Can’t do great art? Design your game so that you don’t have to. Hero Core runs in 320×240 and is in black and white (not monochrome, mind you – black and white are the only two colors used). Almost everything that moves is a particle of some kind, and they are almost all made of simple geometric shapes. The actual levels are made up of square tiles – no attempt to soften or round them was made. The main character doesn’t even have any frames of animation! While the word “retro” is horribly overworked, this game literally looks like it was made in the mid- to late-Eighties for the ZX Spectrum. Practically anyone can do art at this level, and it’s effective. Contrast this with Daniel’s previous game Iji, where the art is by far the weakest part of the game because Daniel isn’t that great at drawing and animating humanoid figures.
The game’s design strikes a perfect balance between challenge and accessibility. Death has practically no sting – all that happens is get warped back to your last save point. And these save points are everywhere, fully refill your health when you use them and allow you to teleport between them. That last bit is the really brilliant part – Daniel Remar has made a Metroidvania that doesn’t have any tedious backtracking in it.
The end result is that Daniel can make the individual rooms (or a sequence of rooms) difficult without making the game frustrating, since all you have to do is make it to the next save point – or teleport elsewhere if you really think you’re not ready yet. And while it’s not quite NES hard, it gets very challenging towards the end and veers into bullet hell territory on the higher difficulties. But practically anyone can finish the game because you don’t need an impossible level of skill; you just need a moderate level of skill and some perseverance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – allow the player to trade time for skill.
So, to sum up, great design, effective art, excellent music and it didn’t take him four years this time. Bravo, Daniel. Bravo.
