Okay, several of the posts in this topic have irritated me for various reasons. I'm going to pretend they don't exist now.
I'm pretty sad to hear this-- AI War was a pretty revolutionary game, at a very affordable price, with constant content updates. It seems like the developer is trudging right through financial worry and working on 4.0, which is a commendable devotion to the art of making a game.
I thought AI War was a rather pretty game already. I mean it's not a graphical power house but it has a nice, crisp UI, everything is very visible and blends together well. It's remarkably easy to pick up, too. So the upgrade is interesting to me.
Agree, some people haven't even tried the damn game. I don't see how it doesn't look impressive, did you watch the trailer? And yea, it's not AI war that's the problem anyway.
Also, what's wrong with the interface?
I think I worded that wrong because (like now) I'm way late to sleep.
I meant to say it's *already* crisp and clean, and rather pretty. So an update to make it more pretty and more crisp is interesting because I thought it already was!
*Edit, the sleep wars roll on*
Again, I agree with Sowelu 100%. Splunkey is nothing new, yet is super popular and coming to X-Box. Plants vs. Zombies brings nothing special to the table, same with almost every pop-cap game. Castle Crushers is the same way. None of these games "Break the mold", but they are presented in a pleasant way and are simply fun. None of these games are OMFG epic either.
And to say AI isn't about "OMFG SO MENY UNETS!" flys in the face of every ounce of marketing the game has to offer. The trailer on their site lists it first, the features section of their site lists it first, and everywhere you look it is the feature they bill.
Regardless of the merits of AI my message to any indy studio is to limit your scope and focus on making something fun.
Also “lol” at people who think Auroa and DF have good interfaces. Why the fuck can’t I build a smelter? Oh, apparently it isn’t a work shop. Which stockpile do barrels end up in again? Why do I have to click 6 times PER Z-LEVEL to designate a 3x3 shaft? Even if you love the game, you cannot make an argument that the interface is “good”.
I think the massive number of units is definitely an advertising point, but it's certainly not what the game is about, despite it being the first thing advertised. I'd say it's a trick of advertising. You capture attention with an interesting element (huge numbers) and attract a buyer from an interested passerby by slowly exposing the core of the product.
I'd say it's about an RTS designed to be almost free of micromanagement blended into a (potential) tower defense game. And this is all on how the player
plays. You could use Knowledge to unlock so much in turrets and support items that it'd be a tower defense game. You can ignore them entirely and unlock additions to your fleet. You can mix both safely.
AI War isn't OH MY GOD TEN THOUSAND UNITS. AI War isn't THERE'S SO MUCH GOING ON WHOA.
It's an RTS with tower defense elements that's up to eight player cooperative against intelligent and tricky AI.That's pretty niche, definitely, but games that have been far more niche than that have sold amazingly. The scope of the game should include a pretty tremendous number of people. Do you like RTS games? Do you at least tolerate tower defense elements? Do you like playing with your buddies against AI? Here you go.
That's really all there is to it. It's far more focused on a specific audience than Minecraft, Cave Story, et. al. but not nearly as focused as Dwarf Fortress. Master of Orion is a hugely known game. I (think?) it sold pretty well. So I don't think narrow scope and focus is Arcen's problem.
If anything I'd say Arcen's problem is the lack of focusing, in fact! Tidalis is a puzzle game, and it looks fun and like a quality puzzle game... but I don't want to play a puzzle game right now. I didn't buy it. I only see so many people who enjoy AI War being the sort of people who enjoy Tidalis.
So I'm sad to see them go. In terms of interface and design, I loved everything about the game. The controls were perfect, the ability to zoom out massively far or in painfully close was great. Simple resource management, unit AI that's good enough to figure out irritating little things by itself and so on. (Seems like ships that boost other ships will automatically choose a pretty intelligent location to place themselves in your fleet, and I don't see them bunching up together and limiting effectiveness.)
(Little pointless tidbit: Riot Control Starships. Super-ships that had customizable attachments and turrets to make each one individual. I loved them so much that I ended up making the maximum amount possible of each rank. They were so much fun to use; ones with lightning turrets, shotguns, little long range lasers with fairly high damage, machineguns, and a big mobile shield, all operating independantly with their own health and such. Good times.)