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Author Topic: That which sleeps- Kickstarted!  (Read 370657 times)

KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #165 on: September 01, 2014, 10:24:28 pm »

Yep, not rushing to wake is part of the strategy for two core reasons.  One of them is what you mentioned, that the more awake you the more raw energy you are outputting into the world, encouraging those in the know to begin to find out what is going on. The second is that it requires an investment on your part (your agents) to rush to wake you, it may be that you get more raw Dark power but you will be in a weaker position overall.

Honestly the game can go in so many directions I find it hard to say what's the "right thing" to do, but all actions have an opportunity cost to them, and figuring out when it makes sense to pursue a particular course takes multiple replays.

If you were to do it "Very Openly" it would be past the point of making use of a scapegoat, scapegoating works when the primary threat is being represented by either a particular agent or a powerful nation.  If that were the case, and your forces were defeated, you can absolutely make a comeback - in fact it's my favorite early game strategy.  Recruit the Orc Warchief, raise the orcs up as strong as possible, burn Aventura to the ground - the orcs will die, but as long as you played it safe in regards to your abilities then when the Warchief falls the nations should relax.  (usually) 

If you have no agents and no nations the game continues, but your chances of winning are pretty low unless it's late game and you are already devastating the world with floods and pestilence.
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Jalak

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #166 on: September 01, 2014, 10:56:41 pm »

You know, looking through all these posts about the mechanics of the game and whatnot, I'm starting to feel a bit nervous about how this game is going to turn out as a whole. I don't mean that the entire project will be a disaster; the fact that you already have most of the game playable speaks for itself in how great this is going to be. The problem I'm seeing, though, is that there looks to be too much game.

From the sheer amount of choice of what you can get your agents to do, the reaction they get and the general goings-ons about the world, the sheer dynamics of this game seem so great that, when the demo comes out, most players will probably have no idea what to actually do for even their first action.

What sort of tutorial is there for this game anyway? Is there a hint system? Maybe some sort of encyclopedia/logbook you can look at and even write notes in to keep track of everything? Maybe I'm just looking too far into this since you've been explaining all the mechanics of this game, but it sounds to me that there is going to be some serious commitment required from players just to keep track of everything important happening. I can imagine the first few games a new player would have not even get to the "conquering" part simply because they have so much difficulty keeping track of all the infiltration aspects of the game.

Don't take this as outright criticism, I want this game to succeed so badly, I'm just starting to get an idea of how too much choice can actually be a bad thing.
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Sartain

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #167 on: September 02, 2014, 02:37:13 am »

Woooo KS this month if I'm correct when the kickstarter comes out this will be released along with a demo ?

What sort of rewards are we going to have ? You already have $100-150 from me :P

Alright so the Demo was originally supposed to be out already, in fact last weekend - then we got the RPS article and a ton of followers so we threw some more money into the game and updated all the GUI visuals, added some effects, and started redoing some of the AI systems.   The end result is our actual demo build is so far behind we don't want to release it - but I don't think given what's on our plate we'd be able to finish the demo and launch the KS this month. 

What we decided was we'd finalize features for testing this week (which we are doing now), get that out for a week for bug fixes, spend the week after preparing KS, launch KS, and then try to get the demo out halfway through.  We don't want the KS to push any further because a lot of metrics suggest launching closer to Christmas is a terrible idea, and also we want to get the money, if any, for improved assets as soon as possible so as not to delay our Q4 launch.  Hopefully people will be interested enough without the demo, but if not they'll stick around long enough to see the demo in action when it's released.

We're talking this week about the Tier rewards, I'm a huge fan of "in-game" rewards like naming Heroes, Countries, and Agents as well as working with us to make new abilities and scenarios, but my business partner sees those somewhat as a "cash grab" and thinks we should limit ourselves to some physical rewards and then the more usual round of digital rewards like soundtrack, wallpapers, extra copies and the like.  Not sure if you guys have an opinion on this - suggestions are always welcome.

Physical rewards are anachronistic and unnecessary in my opinion. I don't think people really give a shit about soundtracks, artbooks and all that crap that usually comes with various boxed special editions. Maybe if your product had a long history with it's fanbase some physical stuff to display would be cool but I don't really see the value of it when your product is new to the market.
I'm generally a much bigger fan of in-game cosmetic rewards, like getting to create fluff or names for regions, heroes, religions & whatever.
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sjm9876

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #168 on: September 02, 2014, 04:18:19 am »

-Snippity-
I don't think this'll be the case tbh. The most direct choices I've seen at any given moment is 4 at a time at start up. Past that, the choices are less pushing, and many of the mechanics sound like things that make enough sense they don't require actually learning. Then again, without having played, I can't comment on the actuality.
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

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Lukeinator

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #169 on: September 02, 2014, 06:10:01 am »

Is there a mac version?

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nenjin

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #170 on: September 02, 2014, 09:25:10 am »

Is there an echo in here, or are people just not bothering to read the thread?
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KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #171 on: September 02, 2014, 10:03:28 am »

You know, looking through all these posts about the mechanics of the game and whatnot, I'm starting to feel a bit nervous about how this game is going to turn out as a whole. I don't mean that the entire project will be a disaster; the fact that you already have most of the game playable speaks for itself in how great this is going to be. The problem I'm seeing, though, is that there looks to be too much game.

From the sheer amount of choice of what you can get your agents to do, the reaction they get and the general goings-ons about the world, the sheer dynamics of this game seem so great that, when the demo comes out, most players will probably have no idea what to actually do for even their first action.

What sort of tutorial is there for this game anyway? Is there a hint system? Maybe some sort of encyclopedia/logbook you can look at and even write notes in to keep track of everything? Maybe I'm just looking too far into this since you've been explaining all the mechanics of this game, but it sounds to me that there is going to be some serious commitment required from players just to keep track of everything important happening. I can imagine the first few games a new player would have not even get to the "conquering" part simply because they have so much difficulty keeping track of all the infiltration aspects of the game.

Don't take this as outright criticism, I want this game to succeed so badly, I'm just starting to get an idea of how too much choice can actually be a bad thing.

The game is actually shockingly simple to play - I am a fan of games I can play "quickly" so that even if there is great depth I can figure out my strategy, implement it, and see the result - and our design reflects that.  Despite all the questions we've had on this thread, we haven't actually discussed how you "play the game" which I do spend an entire video on (Video 4) going over. 

In brief, there are two major player use cases that make up 95% of the game.  1) Challenges 2) Combat.  When an agent wants to do ANYTHING he must do a challenge, which takes time based on his skill vs the difficulty (modified by the POI) - which is represented at the bottom of the screen when you click on any agent.  The agent sits there, performing his challenge, and while doing so Heroes may be drawn to investigate based on the fame of the agent, threat, and a few other factors.  If the Heroes find the Agent, they may attack him, bringing you to combat - or you may decide to attack the heroes - or even more likely if they are about to discover you, you mihgt say "forget about it" and move to another spot.  That's the core of the game, a relatively simple mechanic.

The meat of the game comes from two things 1) the variety of actions emerging from a challenge and 2) the AI.  The AI is fairly unique in how it behaves, and also because you can "interfere" with any action it will take, but you will never have so many "infiltrations" going on that it will be overwhelming.  A lot of this AI work is meant to be in the background, it's meant to create a realistic world that you don't have to "game" to understand, you can pursue your strategy and expect the world to react relatively as you would expect. 

The variety of actions is certainly something that is more gamey, but is again part of learning the game organically.  Maybe you rush to ally with the Necromancer's Cabal and give your minions Necromancer minions, and then you see what options that brings - maybe you ally with the Storm Giants and see how having high threat but high power minions works - it's strategic, gamey, but also should be easily understood because we deal with typical fantasy tropes.

I think you may have gotten a distorted impression of the game based on the questions being asked here - people have been asking about a lot of fringe cases, and yes those are possible but they are part of the very tightly integrated "challenges" and "combat" mechanisms.  Let's take hero capture for instance.  How do heroes get captured?  Random percentage knockout on kill, utilizing special skills, having them be the last combatant and immobilized (all part of combat) - what does that result in?  An "enhancement" on your agent with Status "Captured Hero" set to the hero, also showing the fame and threat of the quest being generated.  Want to torture him?  When you do an Infiltration challenge it checks "has Captured Hero == true" and now you'll see that as an option - want to Corrupt him at the Seal?  IsLocation == OldOneChannel (coding term for any place that channels the old ones power) and has Captured Hero == true.  Most of the complexity, as you can see, emerges organically - the game is as complex as you let it be. 

You can choose to play it as thematically as possible and barely concerned yourself with the "Gamey" aspects, or you can figure out the min/max method of rushing the most powerful agent.  It's completely up to you.
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Puzzlemaker

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #172 on: September 02, 2014, 10:23:00 am »

It's hard to get a feel for a game just from description.  That's why you should release the demo.
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Jalak

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #173 on: September 02, 2014, 10:32:30 am »

It's hard to get a feel for a game just from description.  That's why you should release the demo.

This guy clearly knows exactly what he's talking about and you should do what he just said. I think the whole world will be better off if you just give in and hand over that demo!

Speaking of, how many features in this demo are we going to see compared to the final product?

Also, with what you said about how your agents do their things, does that mean that as long as no hero comes along to mess with them, they can't actually fail whatever action you're trying to do and the only real issue would be dealing with the suspicion, magical "costs" and how long it takes when deciding if it's a good idea or not?
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 10:47:13 am by Jalak »
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KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #174 on: September 02, 2014, 10:47:59 am »

Demo is a huge priority for us, and like all things we want to make sure it's done right - we'll get it into your hands as soon as we feel it's a truly representative product.  Maybe we should have launched the demo instead of doing the GUI Overhaul, who knows - but we felt the graphical limitations would have turned off a lot of people and possibly hurt our ability to get the truly polished product out the door.  Who knows, only time will tell.

The last demo build we have is probably 65% feature complete given what we have added, what we are locking in for features now is about 80% of the expected features - but that isn't representative of total "functionality" given that the "main features" are the core of the game and render it fully playable.  Most features that remain to be implemented are the niche cases we've been discussing, though also there are several Military and Naval components still up in the air.  Of course, some things are still in flux and are subject to change (always for the better I hope). 

I hate random % success rates, so yes without interference your agent ALWAYS SUCCEEDS at his challenge - instead of a random percent to succeed it simply takes more time. 
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That Which Sleeps
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sjm9876

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #175 on: September 02, 2014, 10:50:32 am »

I like the sound of no random failure - given the unpredictability of the AI (without extensive learning anyway), reducing randomness elsewhere is a good thing.

Also, @ demo, it's certainly best to have a representative demo than a rushed one. A bad demo will put off more people than waiting :)
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

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Puzzlemaker

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #176 on: September 02, 2014, 11:14:10 am »

I suppose since this is a bunch of DF players here, we wont mind the bad GUI as much.  Doesn't mean you should release it like that though.

Also, I don't know how you want to answer this, but how did you design the AI?  Just a decision tree or something more complicated?

Edit:  And thanks for being so chatty!  You are loading the hype trains full of coal!
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 11:18:43 am by Puzzlemaker »
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The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

sjm9876

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #177 on: September 02, 2014, 11:22:24 am »

To add to the AI question, is it possible to make custom AIs from the ground up using the editor, or would that be a more in depth task? (Apologies if this's already been asked and I've missed it.)
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My dreams are not unlike yours - they long for the safety, and break like a glass chandelier.
But there's laughter and oh there is love, just past the edge of our fears.
And there's chaos when push comes to shove, but it's music to my ears.

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i2amroy

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #178 on: September 02, 2014, 11:38:18 am »

Edit:  And thanks for being so chatty!  You are loading the hype trains full of coal!
Indeed, you've managed to get me on board for the game (and KS). :))

And yeah I agree with others. The best kickstarter rewards are always things like "name an NPC" (with approval) or community choice development voting (where you present 3 or so different next things to add into the game and let the players decide which should be added), as well as just access to the game. Having talked to other people who have done kickstarters I will say that handling physical goods is a pain and is definitely a lot of stress and money being taken out of your funds. Pretty much the only thing I actually dislike more is kickstarter-only non-cosmetic DLC content (course I don't like normal DLC stuff either). Having an extra pretty skin or badge is a great thing from a kickstarter, having access to extra agents would not be.

And yeah, it would be nice to know if this is Windows only or if we'll be seeing Mac or Linux versions. I'm going to support either way, but my mainline computer is a mac. :P
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 11:40:28 am by i2amroy »
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Jalak

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #179 on: September 02, 2014, 11:51:53 am »

Pretty much the only thing I actually dislike more is kickstarter-only non-cosmetic DLC content (course I don't like normal DLC stuff either). Having an extra pretty skin or badge is a great thing from a kickstarter, having access to extra agents would not be.

Although it would be sort of funny if the agent-dlc was put in, only for everyone to realize that you could get the exact same agent by using the editor that the game just gave you.
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