A Valley Without Wind 2 - a full sequel free for existing customers - is coming.

[tigersfan]

And another question for you, these "slices" or whatever you want to call them, are they going to be editable and such like the building interiors in the first game?  That'd be pretty neat, and if so I'll probably actually contribute this time myself.   Though the main reason I didn't with the first one was that the editor was so unwieldy, making big rooms was kind of a chore, and I ended up not doing any.

They are indeed. they are being created just like the building interiors of the first game. This time there are just more of them. The editor is essentially the same, just with a few different options for tiles. Also, the beauty of these slices is that they aren't SUPPOSED to be big and unweildy, in fact, ideally, they are just big enough to be interesting.

[x4000]

So although you aren't supposed to be actively killing the henchmen and overlord, will there be any advantages to doing so?

Yes and no. The overlord is so powerful that you can't kill him even temporarily until you reach a high level. The henchmen you will fight in occasional boss battles like misery and balrog in cave story -- where their mechanics and tactics can change. Those you'll have to fight periodically in order to complete certain objectives.

Thanks for the support everyone!

And good to see you again Bluddy; several things that you've been saying for a while -- like the mouse aiming -- we're finally acting on. Couldn't do that in the first game, but I'm really glad to be able to do it now!

[keith.lamothe]

This addon fixed youtube comments for me. It's pretty much exactly what they needed.

I suppose sometimes those comment threads do get to the level where it may as well just be unintelligible animal grunting, and that's basically what the addon produces   Youtube, now with extra dehumanization!

[Mánagarmr]

I simply use a comment blocker. I can't be arsed to read the inanities.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I'm getting really excited to see if you really pull off the metroidvania feel well. If you do that, while keeping it procedurally generated, my grades and productivity will plummet. I love, love, love Metroidvania titles. I just haven't been aware of a good one for a long time now. AVWW was somewhat awesome in that regard, though it was lacking more or less in the ways that you described. I just felt no need to use the cool toys I got, and so on.

Regarding comments... you can't let them get to you. I don't mean this in a personal way, but in an overall way. If somebody clearly doesn't know what they are talking about, then their comment isn't really relevant to you, now is it? If somebody kind of is trying to know what they're talking about, then it might be worth a discussion. If somebody clearly knows what they are talking about, then it's worth consideration. The negativity won't stop, there's not exactly a way to fight against it. Then again, you try telling this to me after I plan a theatre performance that nobody shows up to, or worse, that nobody applauds at, and I would not be able to handle such advice. Nobody can exactly be robotic I guess.
That's kinda neat actually. I remember going through old posts about community opinions that you guys have read, and how they affect you. Makes you guys seem less like game-churning robots and more like actual flesh-bags with emotions and stuff, just like everybody actually is. Not something I'm used to seeing in developers.

Edit: This has just occurred to me, actually. Will the sequel be getting its own subforum or is there going to be great effort done to basically completely overhaul the normal AVWW forums?

[Coppermantis]

So although you aren't supposed to be actively killing the henchmen and overlord, will there be any advantages to doing so?

Yes and no. The overlord is so powerful that you can't kill him even temporarily until you reach a high level. The henchmen you will fight in occasional boss battles like misery and balrog in cave story -- where their mechanics and tactics can change. Those you'll have to fight periodically in order to complete certain objectives.

If the bosses in AVWW2 are as awesome as the ones in Cave Story then I will actively seek out these henchmen even if it means I get stomped :V

[x4000]

Cheers, thanks!

Regarding a new subforum... we'll see. I don't want this subforum to become dead while there is everybody moving to the other one. Why have two subforums then? But on the other hand if there is still separate discussion going on, it would be harder to find avww1 commentary if its being overwhelmed by avww2 discussion.

Also: I should stress that we're not emphasizing bosses to much degree in this game, especially at first. I certainly hope they will be more satisfying than the first game, but boss design is not a chief strentgth or interest of ours. We'll do our best, but I just want to taper expectations on that score; otherwise expectations start to get runaway from "much better" to "best evar," and there's a big gap between those two.

[keith.lamothe]

"Taper expectations"

That's a good one

But yea, boss design is something we're still learning.  I imagine we'll get better with time and experience, but making them as good as something like cave story is probably some ways down the road.

[x4000]

Temper! I wonder if my phone auto-corrected that. I'm going to claim so.

[keith.lamothe]

Temper! I wonder if my phone auto-corrected that. I'm going to claim so.

Oh, I thought the word choice was fine (in the sense of "taper off"), just the concept of achieving such a thing seemed hopelessly optimistic

Perhaps I could have better communicated via the boilerplate "(insert snarky comment here)"

[x4000]

[Dizzard]

So when we do kill the overlord, that's it? All done, pack your bags, move on to the next campaign? You said that you can continue but why would you if the overlord was dead?   

On the other hand I really like the greater emphasis on the city building and having npcs doing jobs for you. Plus the look of the game is shaping up well.

Oh and hi again, I haven't played AVWW in ages and have posted much, but I've always been watching.

[ChristopherRC2000]

I posted this over in the SH thread, which seems at least a little appropriate. But decided I needed to repost it here as well. This is not meant in a derogatory way, only my opinion,  but one said and meant to relieve some possible grief down the road for you all.
Thanks.

----------------------
I noticed from the front page of your website that the release date for Shattered Haven has changed to December, though with everything you have going on at your studio I can understand. I was going to say you're probably hip deep in AVWW, but considering the new news on AVWW2 it is probably more like chin deep in work. AVWW2 looks very interesting, and I am looking forward to giving it a try.
 Just a small suggestion though, since you have now released the news on it a bit earlier than you had originally planned, I would suggest keeping it all a bit mum until you are ready to release the beta and fend off the questioners until then as well. They will nit pick and opinionate your direction until the game would look nothing like it should, and wouldn't have a chance of working all of a piece. In my opinion that was the weakness of the first game, lovely, but the various pieces didn't exactly completely fit. A result, not of poor design I think, but rather of a wanting to please the customers perhaps a bit too much. They of course aren't doing the work, or suffering the financial loss if it doesn't do well in the market. I would leave them to their ponderings and get AVWW2 in a shape you think fits with want you want to create.
I mean no disrespect to your ability or your vision, I think you are good men, and women, just perhaps a bit to pleasing that I think people can take advantage of if you are not careful.
But to get beyond my opinion, I am looking forward to the new AVWW2 very much and hope it is a resounding success, and
of course Shattered Haven has me very excited for the beta as well. But all in good time. Keep your own thoughts and discard all the others. Right now you may be wanting to discard mine first, haha.
Thank you for listening,

[Lancefighter]

You mean the giant amoebas of like .4 werent really fun? Those were definitely my favorite. Top notch boss design.

[LaughingThesaurus]

It seems like... the very core essence of boss design is just enough variety in how the boss moves and behaves. Going for a pattern-based boss or a puzzley boss requires a whole lot more skill, but bosses like Cave Story are particularly interesting to me because of the variety of moves they execute, and the whole process of recognizing the move, then doing what you need to do to avoid it. All the while, the movements of the bosses are fairly quick-paced.
Hmm.

I'm beginning to think boss design is really hard now after saying all of that.

The problem I think I had with AVWW bosses has to do with how fast they died and how few attacks they ended up having. Most I remember having one main attack that they stop after a while and use, while constantly just making a straight line path to you. The most exciting boss I think was one who summoned a load of raptors, lobbed a volley of fireballs, and all the while, stayed away from my fists of magic flinging fury. I had to really like take those side paths of the boss room and sneak around and figure out how to actually get at it and deal damage. That kind of boss was a whole lot of fun... but then there's how chaotic it was. Mighta been the shmup-y combat nature of the game, but it was a platformer bullet hell in that fight, it really was.

I need to stop this message since I don't have any really good feedback on bosses other than the desire that each one taxes me in a slightly unexpected way.