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[stuntaneous]

This title is just an inkling of something, if that. It's way too early to anticipate.

[IronyOwl]

I seriously doubt the game would let you play as the monsters on a whim like that.  There's no support anywhere in what we've seen here, or what we've seen in any game, that would encourage us to think that we can be the monsters.

Also, unless the AI is pretty damned advanced it'd be boring.

Keep in mind that the teaser images aren't even screenshots, and are meant to give a very basic overview.  That's like if a DF teaser showed only a mason and axelord, and the viewer assumed "Oh, all dwarves only wield axes."  The teaser is meant to show the basics of gameplay and give a broad overview of "these are things that may happen" while the actual game may include any amount of detail that's more complex and too heavy to show in the teaser.

On the other hand, while assuming that you can only play as dwarves wouldn't be totally accurate, assuming that the game's completely focused on and built around them would be.

Of course, to be honest I'd be surprised if the finished game looked anything like what they have in mind right now, so whether they've got different creature appearance support planned might not be all that important.

My guess is monster spawners you have to take out, ala Gauntlet. There's some on each island and they constantly just puke out guys at varying rates. Or maybe they just wander in from the edges of the island where you aren't.

I doubt that. First of all, that'd make the spawn rate the same when you first started out as when you were fully entrenched.

Secondly, that'd make the goal of the game to defend your castle until such time as you could be bothered to go smash the spawner. Assuming they spawn in waves, that might be fairly easy to pull off.

Third, uninhabited islands would become absolutely infested with resource-draining critters for no benefit, or else you'd need some sort of die-off mechanic for just that one thing, and it'd still tax your system more than was necessary.

This title is just an inkling of something, if that. It's way too early to anticipate.

It's never too early to wildly and idealistically speculate, though.

[Girlinhat]

We're generating hype.  This is alright.  Speculate away, but be prepared to eat your words upon evidence.

[Aklyon]

But don't get too overhyped. THis creates overexpectation sads.

[nenjin]

It wouldn't be a feat of magic to control for various things (including length of run time) to adjust how many monster you get.

I say what I said because the impression the game has given me so far is kind of like tower defense. The idea of making a draw bridge to your castle so baddies can stare at you in futility....doesn't seem like the basis of a game. More like window dressing for castle-building.

So I assume there's more going on than that. And their Twitter feed indicates they've plotted some game play out already.

As for managing hype, that's a skill every gamer has to learn at some point in their life

[IronyOwl]

We're generating hype.  This is alright.  Speculate away, but be prepared to eat your words upon evidence.

Obviously.

But don't get too overhyped. THis creates overexpectation sads.

I refuse.

As for managing hype, that's a skill every gamer has to learn at some point in their life

Also this.

It wouldn't be a feat of magic to control for various things (including length of run time) to adjust how many monster you get.

I say what I said because the impression the game has given me so far is kind of like tower defense. The idea of making a draw bridge to your castle so baddies can stare at you in futility....doesn't seem like the basis of a game. More like window dressing for castle-building.

So I assume there's more going on than that. And their Twitter feed indicates they've plotted some game play out already.

I don't really see the similarities. They're suggesting you build a castle, not a maze lined with archers.

I suspect they'll have more clever ways of dealing with that than just keeping up the spawn rate, especially since you could solve that issue by adding archers to your impenetrable gates and raising/lowering drawbridge abuse (enemies that tunnel/climb/jump/build ramps/ladders/siege towers and otherwise just properly siege you come to mind). And even if they didn't, I'm not sure why having them spawn at a destructible structure would fix the issue more than having them spawn out of nowhere or similar. If anything, I'd think that'd make the "shut the drawbridge and forget about it" problem worse, since in some cases you could just wall off a particular canyon.

Haven't seen anything concrete on their Twitter, though.

[Girlinhat]

We do have zero reason to believe in Gauntlet style spawn structures.  I see this as highly unlikely.  Enemy fortress as a spawner, perhaps, but not wilderness spawners.  I'd say it's more likely to be Minecraft style, with them appearing from nowhere within the fog of war.

[nenjin]

We can't really be certain of anything until we see them in context. Currently there's no fog of war, either.

Mental note, if I ever make a game, wait longer than this to demo what I've got

[Darkmere]

Well there could be fog, in the sense that enemies that are out of sight of your little guys just aren't rendered. I haven't played many RTS's in a while but I remember some FoW models had the maps/terrain revealed, just not what was currently going on that your units can't see.

Granted this wouldn't be in that alpha build... but you get what I mean.

[Folly]

Screenshots look promising. I look forward to more =]

[Max White]

Hmm, looks all right.
Will be interested in seeing what sort of direction they take this. In the mean time, I will keep playing the low graphics, high detail version. 

[IronyOwl]

We can't really be certain of anything until we see them in context. Currently there's no fog of war, either.

They have mentioned "exploring" though, so it's not unreasonable to assume there might be some sort of fog/camera issues. That might have just been a euphemism for "your guys can go places that aren't explicit resource mines or construction sites," but I'd tend to assume otherwise.

Also, it's worth noting that reaching other islands, especially if they're not all exactly level with yours, would be uniquely difficult with traditional fog (though you're just a 'revealed map' setting away from solving that issue), which I guess adds another layer of (somewhat minor) doubt.

Mental note, if I ever make a game, wait longer than this to demo what I've got

It's polished enough to look great and get the gist of the point across ("build stuff"), and the earlier they announce it the more time there is for word to get around. Sure, some people might be disappointed at the presence/absence of this or that, but I don't think minor disappointments like that are all that damaging, and the payoff is pretty high.

[nenjin]

I think I'm spoiled by Terraria, that literally hit the ground running after their announce and got right down the business of getting the game out. That was the upshot of all the publicity. I'd prefer that to a year long wait while we watch feature creep happen.

[Darkmere]

I think I'm spoiled by Terraria, that literally hit the ground running after their announce and got right down the business of getting the game out. That was the upshot of all the publicity. I'd prefer that to a year long wait while we watch feature creep happen.

I tend to agree. By the time this is a game instead of a tech demo, I'll have long forgotten about it.

[IronyOwl]

I think I'm spoiled by Terraria, that literally hit the ground running after their announce and got right down the business of getting the game out. That was the upshot of all the publicity. I'd prefer that to a year long wait while we watch feature creep happen.

While I certainly feel your pain, there are two things to keep in mind. One, from their perspective it was a really good idea to let everyone know about this so they could see if anyone actually cared and give time for word to spread, so you can't really fault them for that.

Two, in theory this means they can get a lot of input and make the game better. How this will work in practice remains to be seen, obviously, but I'd much rather they release the game with months (or years, though that thought makes me incredibly sad) worth of feedback than just a few weeks or none at all.


Also, it might be like DF or Minecraft, where they release some form of playable beta so we can get our fixes (and refine the game even better) while they finish it. I'd greatly prefer what MC did to just hearing about it but getting the whole package a few months ago, for instance.